Nadir
by chai4anne
Summary: Josh gets a piano-and a hard time.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This story is a sequel to "Buying Time." It was first posted on JDFF in December, 2004. Like "Buying Time," it takes place in an imaginary Season 5, in which Zoey never got kidnapped and none of the Wellsian events of the real Season 5 (or the Sorkinian ones from the end of Season 4) have happened at all.

It comes with a warning for anyone who hasn't read it before: There's a description of a rape in Chapter 6. It occurs in the past, not the present time of the story, and it should be pretty easy to spot coming and skip if you want to, but please be aware that it's there if you decide to read this.

Also, when I first posted this story, one reader was very upset with me because she thought I was making light of sexual violence. I was sorry she felt that way, but not sure what led her to that conclusion, unless it's that I described the characters as laughing "hysterically" shortly after one of them tells the story. I've thought about changing this, but it still feels like the right response to me: hysterical laughter is a pretty common reaction to highly emotional situations, and my using it here absolutely doesn't mean that I or the characters I'm writing about think there's anything funny about rape.

And, finally, a note on the medical situation I've put Josh into: I've often felt uncomfortable about having taken things to such an extreme in this story. The condition I describe is actually a potential side-effect of certain cancer drugs-or it was, at the time I wrote this-but if you don't like melodramatic fic, you'd probably better not read this one.

(On the other hand, the other major plot line in this story, for which I've received quite a few accusations of writing Josh out of character? I'll stand behind that all the way. :-))

na-dir (noun)

That point on the celestial sphere directly opposite the zenith and directly below the observer; the lowest point. The sun is at the nadir at the very middle of the night.

The period of time following chemotherapy when the white blood cell count is at its lowest, and the body's resistance is at its weakest.

An extreme state of adversity; the lowest point in a person's career or fortunes; the time of deepest despair; the darkest moment.

Part 1—

"Why on earth?"

"God knows."

"It's huge."

"Yes, it is."

"Enormous. Vast. Hulking."

"All of those things."

"Your living room has just shrunk to half its usual size."

"Yes, it has."

"Why on earth?"

"God knows."

"I mean, it's not as if you played."

"No."

"You don't, do you? I've never heard you."

"No, of course I don't."

"No, that's pretty hard to imagine—Josh Lyman, sensitive musician. What on earth was she thinking of?"

"God knows. What is my mother ever thinking of? She's a nut."

"Josh!"

"It's true, Donna—don't look at me like that. She's always been a nut. A nice nut, but a nut just the same."

"I like your mother."

"I like her, too. She's still a nut."

"She's just—artistic."

"Oh yes, definitely artistic. Vague, dreamy, totally impractical."

"And charming."

"Absolutely charming. Just off in her own little world, part of which includes being convinced that, since I'm her son, I must be artistic too. I had to do drawing lessons after school for years, until the teacher finally told her it was hopeless. I narrowly escaped ballet."

"That bad, huh?"

"That bad."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"I dunno. Leave it there, I guess."

"It takes up that whole end of the room."

"Yeah, it does."

"If you send it back, she'll be upset, won't she?"

"Afraid so. I'm stuck with it."

"It's huge."

"Yeah."

"What was she thinking of?"

"God knows."

oooooo

"Hey, Donna."

"Hey, C.J."

"How's Josh?"

"Pretty good, thanks. Almost too good; he's so restless he's driving himself crazy."

"And you too, huh?"

"Definitely me too."

"I heard he was going to start coming in again? Just for a couple of hours a day?"

"Not for a while yet. He's dying to, but the President and Leo are holding firm."

"Poor Josh. And poor you."

"Yeah. I was thinking, would people like to come over to his place tomorrow night? We could do pizza or Chinese. He'd love to see you all, and it's been a while since we've been able to get everyone together at once."

"Can Josh manage that? The food, I mean."

"He'll be okay as long as there's stuff that's not spicy. He's doing a lot better that way."

"That's terrific. I'll rope in Toby; you check with Will."

"Will you ask Carol, too? And I'll get Charlie, and Zoe if she's free; Josh always likes seeing her. There's going to be a surprise guest, too."

"Oooo, who?"

"It wouldn't be a surprise if I told you, would it?"

"Cheek."

"No comment, madam Press Secretary."

"If surprises are the order of the evening, can I bring another one along?"

"Oooo, who?"

"Wouldn't be a surprise if I told you, would it?—Go on, you can say it."

"Really?"

"Of course."

"Cheek."

"No comment, madam Deputy Deputy."

"Tomorrow night then. At Josh's place."

"Tomorrow night."

"Oh, C.J.?"

"Yes, Donna?"

"It's going to be a bit crowded."

"If everyone makes it, yes it is."

"More crowded than that."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll see."

oooooo

"What the hell is that?"

"It's a piano, Tobus. Haven't you ever seen one before? The only instrument that's classified as both string and percussion—"

"I mean, what the hell is it doing in Josh's living room?"

"Maybe we should ask Josh that. Josh! What the hell is that?"

"It's a piano, C.J. Haven't you ever seen one before?"

"She means, what the hell is it doing in your living room, Josh?"

"Ask my mother."

"Your mother?"

"Yeah, she sent it up from Florida. It came a couple of days ago."

"Why did she do that?"

"God knows."

"I mean, most people associate Florida with other things. Beaches, shells, floppy straw hats. Citrus fruit. If she wanted to send you something from Florida, why didn't she send you a box of oranges or grapefruit?"

"Well, the acid's not too great on my stomach these days, but I don't think she was going for a souvenir of the sunshine state, C.J."

"She wasn't?"

"Josh's mother lives in Florida, C.J. She's not just there for a holiday."

"I thought she lived in Connecticut."

"She moved. A few years ago."

"Well, why would she send you a piano, Josh? They're pretty expensive things to ship, and that one must have cost a fortune."

"I know."

"Why then?"

"God knows."

"It's not as if you play. You don't, do you? I've never heard you."

"No, of course I don't."

"Yeah, I can't really imagine that."

"He's so clumsy."

"Thanks, Donna."

"And not exactly the sensitive type."

"No soul."

"I do too have soul!"

"Not that kind of soul. A political soul, maybe. A rip-their-throats-out, Republican-hating soul."

"We've all got that."

"Don't forget his Doobie Brothers soul."

"'Old black water, keep on rollin''"—

"Oh God, now you've got him started."

"'Mississippi moon, won't you keep on shiiiii-nin' on me?'"

"Someone shut him up!"

"'I'd like to hear some funky dixie-land—'"

"Shut UP, Josh!"

"'Pretty mama come and'—Ouch! Hey!"

"Doesn't your own mother know what you're like?"

"It's a wise parent knows her own child."

"Don't get all Scriptural on us, Will; Toby will try to take you to temple."

"Josh's mother is artistic."

"So?"

"She thinks he must be, too."

"Poor woman."

"Yes, it's sad, really. She must have been so disappointed."

"Yeah, all I ever did was graduate from Harvard and Yale, and work at the White House. Never gave her anything to brag about."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Leave it there, I guess. What else can I do?"

"Wow. You're willing to live with that? It really dominates the room."

"For a while, anyway, until I can figure out how to get it back to her without hurting her feelings."

"There's the doorbell. Get it, Josh."

"Hey, SAM!"

"Hey, Josh! How are you? How are you feeling, buddy?"

"I'm fine. A lot better. What are you doing on the East Coast?"

"I had a big meeting in Boston yesterday."

"This is D.C. There's a few hundred miles' difference."

"Same coast, though. And I wanted to see you. I talked to Donna about it yesterday."

"Well, thanks for coming, bro. She's over there, waiting to put lipstick marks all over your face and give you a beer. C.J.'s here, and Toby—hey, everybody, look who's here!—and Charlie and Zoe are coming over later. Your doppleganger's around somewhere-get over here, Will, here's Sam! And—wait a minute, who's this? Danny, what the hell are you doing here?"

"C.J. told me to come. She said Donna said it was okay."

"Donna! What are you doing inviting the press to a private party?"

"DANNY! What are you doing here?"

"You told C.J. he could come."

"I didn't know it would be Danny! C.J., why didn't you tell me Danny was coming?"

"Hey, I thought you guys would be glad to see me."

"Yeah, man, we're glad. We didn't know you were back in town, is all. Guinness, or Sam Adams? Or Toby's brought some Jack, and there's some decent gin."

"I'll take a Guinness, thanks. So how're you doing, Josh?"

"Getting sick of that question."

"Yeah, I'll bet you are. You should stop getting yourself into states that force people to ask it."

"I'll try to keep that in mind."

"Josh, what the hell is that?"

"It's a piano, Danny; haven't you ever seen one before?"

oooooo

It had been a terrific evening. Sam had ended up playing show tunes, badly, on the big Steinway while C.J. sat on the piano and sang. Both Danny and Toby had spent a lot of time watching her. Carol hadn't been able to make it, but Charlie and Zoe had dropped in, and everyone except Josh had drunk too much of a variety of alcohols, and stuffed themselves on kung pao chicken, moo shu pork, and moo goo gai pan. Josh been able to eat some of the mango chicken, and had allowed himself half a pint of beer; his stomach was doing a lot better than it had been, but he still had to be careful. Now everyone had left except Donna, who was fussing around the kitchen, putting the last of the food away and waiting for the kettle to boil for another cup of coffee for herself. He'd actually tried to help with the cleanup, but Donna had taken one look at his face and pushed him down onto the couch. He was tired enough not to protest very much.

He was struggling to stay awake for her when the doorbell rang. Josh pulled himself to his feet and walked over to open it. "Leo! You've missed the party. Come on in and have some coffee, though; Donna's just getting some."

Leo McGarry looked his deputy over carefully. He wasn't sure he liked what he saw. Josh was looking a lot better than he had a month ago; rest and a better diet—the Bartlets had kept their promise and had arranged for most of Josh's meals to be delivered from the White House kitchen—had definitely had their effect, and he'd put on some weight again, though he was still a lot thinner than he'd been before he got sick. He looked tireder than Leo liked to see, and something about his eyes made the older man think he might be in pain. A headache, maybe; he'd had a long evening. Leo wondered if he should have dropped by so late, but he'd promised Donna he'd make it, and he hadn't wanted to let the opportunity go by. With Leo's crazy schedule and Josh still at home on sick leave, Leo wasn't getting to see his deputy as often as he liked. He still felt terrible about having missed what was happening with Josh, and was feeling a need to check in frequently to make sure he didn't overlook anything else.

It wasn't until he was settled in a chair, sipping the coffee Donna had brought in, that Leo noticed the object that filled the entire end of Josh's living room by the window. "When did you get a piano, Josh?"

"Two days ago. My mother sent it up from Florida."

"It's a nice one."

"Yeah. I think she's really slipped a gear this time."

"Never diss your own mother, Josh. She's worried about you, and she doesn't like your being so far away."

"Yeah, I know, but sending a large, bulky object I can't use that fills up half my apartment? That's definitely a sign of serious gear-slippage."

"What do you mean, you can't use it? You play, don't you?"

"Me? Are you nuts?"

"You used to, didn't you?"

"Gear-slippage, Leo, definite gear-slippage. You want to watch that; you'll end up in a retirement village in West Palm Beach, along with my mother. The next step's a locked ward."

"I'm sure I remember something—"

"Joanie, Leo," Josh said in a quieter voice. "You're thinking of Joanie."

Leo winced; he hadn't meant to remind Josh of his sister. He wished, not for the first time, that he remembered more about Josh's childhood, but he really didn't. He and Noah had been colleagues, business friends who found each other's company congenial. They had seen a lot of each other for a while—had golfed together; dined and talked politics and played bridge at their clubs together; enjoyed a drink together, until Leo's drinking had got out of hand—but he'd only been to the Lymans' house a few times. He remembered a mischievous little boy with a big grin and a mop of reddish-brown hair, and a quiet, pretty girl with a mass of dark curls, a few years older. She'd been talented, he remembered that. Yes, musical; now that he'd been reminded of it, he could just recall her playing for them on the grand piano in the living room—it was probably the same piano, he realized suddenly—and Jenny saying afterwards that that girl was going to be something someday. How sad. He remembered that Josh had tailed his sister everywhere, pestering her for attention, and that she had been surprisingly patient with him, motherly. He had a vague memory of Josh sitting, uncharacteristically quiet, listening while she played for the party. Other than that, nothing he could be sure of; the drink had muddled a lot of his memories from that period, anyway, and then he and Jenny had moved to Chicago and had fallen out of touch with the Lymans, except for cards at Christmas—at the holidays, he corrected himself. He remembered the shock with which they had learned about the Lymans' tragedy, the fire and the pretty, talented girl's death. He hadn't seen Josh again until he was grown up, a young man fresh out of law school, working on the Hill. So much he didn't know.

oooooo


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2—

Sam was sitting on the plane, wishing he wasn't. Wishing he could stay another day or two in D.C., wishing he'd had more time to talk to Josh. He was still shocked by his friend's appearance, and more shocked by the way everyone else had been saying how good Josh was looking, how much better than he'd been a month before. What was the matter with them all? Apparently they hadn't known what was happening with Josh until he had more or less collapsed at the White House. In the Residence. After weeks of late nights and virtually no food, after months of gut-wrenching chemotherapy. Sam still didn't understand it; how could they not have noticed? Or, having noticed—as Toby, apparently, actually had—how could they have kept quiet and said nothing, done nothing? You should have been there, Sam thought. Your best friend and you're never there when he needs you. He'd never really forgiven himself for not having gone looking for Josh when he was shot, at Rosslyn. If it hadn't been for Toby . . . . But this time Toby had seen, and done nothing. It made Sam furious. What had he been thinking? What had any of them been thinking? The hair loss alone should have given the game away, but apparently they'd all gone around believing some story Josh had spun about a hot new girlfriend and a hip new look, or a hip new girlfriend and a hot new look, or some nonsense like that. Didn't any of them actually know Josh? Even Donna. Though Sam wasn't entirely surprised there; he could pretty much guess how that had come about. Josh would have started talking about the girlfriend before his hair fell out, or he shaved it, or whatever had happened, long before he'd started looking ill, and Donna would have been so fixated on what she thought he was doing that she'd have been blinded to what he really was doing. Josh would have been just the same if it had been her. But they seemed to be past all that; it was obvious that they were together now. At last. It was a little hard to process, actually; Sam had somehow pictured Josh and Donna dancing circles around each other for all eternity, but he was glad it had finally happened, and just when Josh really needed someone, too. Glad, and, if he really looked in his heart, a little sad too, just a little. He'd always known it wasn't going to happen, but a part of him had never quite stopped wishing . . . .

oooooo

Toby sat in his battered old armchair, savoring the end of a cigar. He'd wanted one all evening, but hadn't been about to light up in Josh's apartment. Josh had never been crazy about the smell. Normally they both ignored that, and Toby puffed away to his heart's content, but he didn't know how it might affect Josh in his present condition, and he didn't want to be responsible for making the man feel any sicker than he already did. Toby felt quite responsible enough.

He was having a hard time with that. Had been having a hard time with it ever since that day a month ago when Leo had come into Senior Staff and told him and C.J. and Will that the President had ordered Josh to take sick leave. Had told them that Josh had been too weak to leave the Residence after the party Friday evening, and had had to spend the night there. Had told them about the diagnosis, the chemo and the side effects, the missed meals and lack of sleep. The others had been so shocked, so angry with themselves for not having noticed, not having understood. Toby had been angry with himself for having noticed and understood, but not having done what Josh had needed him to do.

He hadn't had the whole picture, of course. He'd known Josh had cancer—had seen the signs, guessed it, talked to him about it—but he'd thought Josh was under the care of a doctor, probably a whole team of doctors, and that the weight loss was being monitored and managed. He'd said as much to Leo after the others had left, that morning, and Leo had fixed him with one of those penetrating stares the man specialized in, and told him quietly that Josh had discontinued treatment several weeks before and hadn't seen a physician since. Toby had felt his gut drop out, and a wave of anger wash over him that he hadn't been able to get his head above since. Anger at Josh, for doing something so stupid. Anger at himself.

He hadn't wanted to have to deal with what he knew. Josh had demanded that he keep quiet about it, and he had been only too willing to oblige. It had seemed like the right thing to do at the time—to give the man the privacy and dignity he himself would have wanted if he were the one who'd been sick. And then, when Donna had come along and talked to him about her fight with Josh, he'd been able to have it both ways: to tell someone who, he'd convinced himself, would take care of anything that needed taking care of, and yet not have to go to Leo and bring the thing right out into the open, which he knew would infuriate Josh.

The two men were different in so many ways, but Toby knew his colleague—his friend; why did he always avoid the word?—well enough to know they were alike in that one: for all that Josh could be so outrageously gregarious, he was at the core someone who guarded himself and his privacy fiercely. The difference, of course, which Toby hadn't considered at the time, was that Toby knew how to look after himself. Yes, he drank too much, once in a while; yes, he smoked cigars, on occasion; yes, his family life was a shambles. But he did what he had to do to keep himself relatively sane and healthy. Josh didn't. Toby remembered that December after the shooting, when he'd seen the changes in Josh, when he'd known something was wrong but hadn't wanted to intrude and hadn't done anything, and the man hadn't talked to anyone about what was happening to him but had cracked under the strain of it and put his hand through a window. This was the same sort of thing all over again.

Toby was mortified that he, Toby Ziegler, had been that stupid twice. He'd always liked to think he was someone who learned from his mistakes, though God knows, he hadn't learned with Andie. That was a mess—that whole absurd, expensive, embarrassing business about the house; the ring he'd worn all these years; the children, my God, the children. He put the cigar down suddenly, and sat, his hands empty and useless, thinking about Huck and Molly and Andie. And his father, wanting so much to see his grandchildren. And Josh, forcing him to talk to his father again when it was the last thing on earth he'd wanted to do; Josh opening himself up in what was, Toby had recognized even at the time, an extraordinary gesture from a private man, to try to convince his friend that family mattered more than anything. And Sam—his deputy once, almost his younger brother—who had been so angry with him this evening, in that tight-lipped, buttoned-down way Toby had almost forgotten, but recognized immediately when he saw it. And Josh, lying on the pavement at Rosslyn, his head in Toby's arms, coughing and choking on his own blood. And C.J., her long sexy legs dangling from the piano, her sultry voice singing old show tunes and torch songs. And Danny, coming at her invitation, watching her all evening, going off in her car at the end of the night. And Andie again, and the children. And Josh. And Josh. And Josh.

oooooo

C.J.'s feet ached; it was those damn Manolo Blahniks she hadn't been able to resist wearing. They made her legs look terrific, and she had wanted Danny to notice her legs. He had. Toby had, too, but that was Toby; it was Danny she'd been thinking about tonight. Useful thoughts, very useful thoughts; thoughts that had led to a variety of highly pleasurable activities, followed by his lying snoring in her bed right now. The snoring wasn't very loud—it was quite gentle, really—but it was enough to keep her awake and thinking about her feet, and other things. Maybe she'd take a bath. She got up and crossed the room, hissing at the pain in her heels and toes. She really had to stop wearing those shoes. Though if they'd helped with her legs and Danny, they'd been worth it; he'd known exactly what to do to make her feel good, and she'd needed to feel good tonight. For a little while she'd felt great, everywhere except her feet, and even they hadn't been so bad when he was working on them. She wondered if Danny always snored, or only when he'd had as much to drink as he had tonight. Most men would be useless after that much alcohol, but it hadn't affected Danny's performance at all. Journalists. And press secretaries, she thought, smiling a little; they were two of a kind. She was going to have a hell of a head in the morning. She didn't care. She'd needed something to make her feel good tonight; she was willing to pay for it tomorrow.

She started the water pouring in her bath, shook in some scented salts, and sat on the john waiting for the tub to fill. Her thoughts turned back to the party, and Josh. He'd been looking better than the last time she'd seen him, but by the end of the evening . . . . She'd been the first to notice the expression on his face—well, the first besides Donna, who had come up and whispered to her just seconds after she'd had the idea herself—and she'd helped start the wind-down, moving around the room and telling everyone quietly that it was time to clear out and let Josh get some rest. Knowing she'd noticed tonight was a little comfort, but not much. She still couldn't believe she hadn't seen how sick he was a month ago. Two months, three or four months, she spat at herself. What the hell were you thinking, Claudia Jean? You actually bought that story about the haircut and the girlfriend? You thought something was wrong, you know you did; that's why you kept asking him if he was all right. You've known Josh for years; why did you ever think he'd tell you the truth about something like that? She didn't really have an answer, except the faint plea that she'd been insanely busy, and that her father was taking up most of what spare time and attention she had, and that she'd figured that, if anything was really wrong with Josh, Donna would know about it.

But Donna hadn't known, and they could have lost him. Might lose him still; he was looking better, but who could know what the cancer was doing inside him? That was what made it such a terrifying disease; you could beat it for a while, seem perfectly healthy for a few months, a year, lots of years—and then it could come back and kill you in no time at all. Or not; lots of people beat it and never heard from it again. But how did you stop worrying, once that horrible thing had wormed its way into a friend's body?

Such a good friend. More than a friend, really; in many ways she was closer to Josh than to her own brothers, who knew nothing about the work she did, twenty hours a day sometimes, and cared less, though they cared about her, of course, and she about them, in a not-very-absorbing sort of way. Josh—maddening, indispensable Josh—was the one she turned to when she really needed a brother. Though she knew, if she was being entirely honest with herself, that "brother" and "sister" didn't really account for their whole relationship; there had always been a touch of something else between them, something she'd never cared to examine very closely, because the likelihood of its leading to anything other than misery was so slim. She knew Josh felt it, too; she could tell, by the way his eyes danced sometimes when he teased her; the warmth of his hugs, one-armed or otherwise; the comments he made about her body. But there'd always been a lot more of that between him and Donna.

Which was fine with C.J.; Donna had a lot more patience with his faults than she had. Too much patience, C.J. had often thought, though she knew the younger woman was more than capable of standing up to him, too. It was good that they finally seemed to have gotten together; she was glad Josh had someone with him while he was going through all this, and glad Donna didn't have to watch from the sidelines. C.J. knew how hard that had been for her when he'd been shot. Donna had done a lot then—C.J. smiled, remembering The Rules—but there'd been limits neither of them had felt able to cross. She wondered how it would all pan out when Josh came back to work and started giving Donna orders again, but she thought they could find a way around whatever difficulties might crop up. If they had to they could always transfer Donna to another job in the White House or the OEOB; there were always openings, or they could create a job if need be. That might be the best thing anyway. It was obvious that she wasn't going to file a sex-harassment complaint—the only PR issue C.J. had ever worried about there, since a consensual relationship between the deputy chief of staff and his assistant was unlikely to interest anyone else in Washington very much—but she was capable of doing more than she did in her present job, and might thrive in a different position as long as she had Josh to herself at home. In any case, they didn't have to worry about that yet; it could wait for when Josh came back to work.

When Josh came back to work. When. When. She had to keep thinking that; she couldn't let herself stray into the other word. Into "if." She couldn't keep it at bay, though. It wasn't as if he'd beaten anything yet. He was still in treatment—back in treatment, she reminded herself. Leo had told her privately about Josh dropping out of his treatments during the education bill thing. The thought made her sick to her stomach. She couldn't really imagine what kind of dark place he must have been in to have done something like that, and she didn't want to imagine it. It was almost more unbearable than the "ifs." She turned the water off and sank into the bath, letting the warmth and the scent soak into her, deliberately turning her mind away from the thoughts about Josh that kept trying to claim it. Danny, she thought to herself; I'm going to think about Danny now. And me. And Danny.

She was beautifully relaxed, her feet painless and comfortable at last, when a strange bit of memory drifted into her half-asleep mind. Josh, years ago, listening to Schubert's "Ave Maria" in his office while everyone else was drinking wine and eating the President's chili upstairs in the Residence. Josh telling her to listen to one particular, gorgeous bit, and wondering whether you had to be crazy to make something that great. She'd never forgotten what he'd told her that night about the NSA card he'd been given that she hadn't, but she'd forgotten that. How strange, she thought, sleepily. How unlike the Josh they usually saw. Maybe . . . But she was too groggy with hot water and bath salts and sleep and sex and gin and red wine to follow the thought any further.

ooooo

Donna lay wide awake beside Josh, who was sleeping quietly, for him. It had been a good evening, she thought. He'd been so happy to see everyone; there'd been lots of laughter, lots of mocking Republicans, lots of talking up a storm. Even the piano had added to the fun: they'd all enjoyed razzing Josh about it, and Sam's playing, bad though it was, and C.J.'s singing. She just wished Josh hadn't looked so worn out by the end of the evening. She was pretty sure he'd had a bad headache before the crowd had left, though he wouldn't admit it when she asked him. He was funny that way, she thought; he could whine like a baby over a cold or some minor discomfort, but when something was really wrong he got incredibly tight-lipped about it. He'd been like that after Rosslyn; in the beginning, when the pain had been horrible, he'd struggled not to let it show—not that any of them could have missed it, she thought. Later, when he'd started to moan and fuss, she'd known he was getting better. Though she'd realized, over the years, that he hid quite a few things on a daily basis; he still had lingering physical effects from the shooting, and some psychological ones, too, but he hated for anyone to see them. And now this. She knew there were a lot of people in the world who had worse things to deal with, but it still didn't seem fair to her. No one else she knew personally had had as much stuff thrown at him in his life as Josh had. Not even Charlie, who had had his share of rough times and tragedy, but had at least been able to dodge the bullets those sick, bigoted boys had intended for him, and was still fit and healthy.

She sometimes wondered if it wasn't that sense of something hurting in Josh that drew her to him, even more than his intelligence and energy, his odd moments of tenderness, his undeniable charm. Even before the shooting and the PTSD, it had been there. His father dying—she'd never forget the way he'd frozen in the middle of a gesture and had hung there, suspended, almost, in mid-motion, as he'd tried to process what she'd told him, while everyone else was going wild with joy over their big win, and "Celebration" boomed out of the speakers around them. Or the expression on his face afterwards, when it had begun to sink in. She'd always hated herself for having dropped that on him just when he was so happy and so entitled to his happiness, even though she knew she hadn't really had a choice. It would have been too grotesque to grab his hands and dance with him, then tell him later.

But it wasn't just his father's death that had made him seem so vulnerable to her. She remembered the slow, bits-and-pieces way she'd found out about his sister. She hadn't even known he'd had a sister till months after she started working for him. Then one day on the campaign trail he'd tossed his wallet at her and told her to use his credit card to order them some pizza. His wallet was a disaster area; she'd had to take half the stuff out just to find the card, and while she was waiting on the phone she'd started to clean it out and organize it. The wallet itself was torn and battered, but it must have been a good one once to have lasted so long; judging from what she found in it, it couldn't have been less than twenty years old. Or maybe he was one of those men who just grabbed everything out of one wallet and shoved it into another without looking at it, when the old one finally collapsed and he was forced to make a change.

In either case, cleaning it out made Donna feel like an archaeologist digging down through layers of the life of Josh. There was a five-year-old dry-cleaning receipt; the return half of an Amway ticket from New York to Washington, dated November 24, 1991; and twenty pounds sterling in American Express checks, suggesting to Donna some backpacking tour of Europe during his college days. And tucked into one of those out-of-the-way pockets where everything gets forgotten, sandwiched between his old Harvard student i.d. and a Connecticut library card that had expired in 1978, she'd found a picture of a girl. The photograph had been folded and creased; one corner was missing, and it looked like coffee had been spilled on it a hundred years ago, but you could still see the girl's face quite clearly: she was very pretty, with long, curly dark hair and a bright smile. She looked about fourteen. Donna had teased him about it while they were eating the pizza.

"So, I found your first love." "What?" Josh had looked startled. "Your first love. Her picture was in your wallet. At least, I hope she was your first love and not a more recent one, because she definitely looks underage." "What are you talking about?" Josh had demanded, around a mouthful of pepperoni and Italian sausage. She'd pushed the photograph across the desk at him; they were eating in his makeshift office in the local campaign headquarters, somewhere in Pennsylvania. He'd wiped his fingers on his jeans, picked it up, and gone very still when he looked at it. "I didn't realize I still had that," he'd said, softly. "She's very pretty," Donna had said, still in teasing mode, "but a bit young for you now, don't you think?" "It's my sister," Josh had said, opening the desk drawer and slipping the photo inside.

"I didn't know you have a sister!" Donna had said, surprised. "Where does she live?" He'd picked up his beer and studied it for a minute, as if important polling data might be written in the small print on the label, before he'd answered. "She doesn't. She died when we were kids." He'd put the beer down without drinking it, stood up, and said, "I need to talk to Leo about that thing tomorrow," walking out of the room and leaving Donna staring after him, her mouth a little open, a piece of pepperoni-and-sausage pizza in her hand.

After that she'd watched him carefully when people were talking about their families or their childhoods, and realized how little he had to say about his own. He wasn't alone in that—Toby was, if anything, even more reticent—but it struck her differently now. After he'd left for his father's funeral, she'd overheard C.J. asking Leo whether Josh had any brothers or sisters. "There was a sister, Joanie. She was a few years older than Josh. She died when she was fourteen or fifteen." "She died? How sad. What happened?" "There was a fire. The children were home alone. He got out; she didn't." "How horrible." "Yes, it was. I don't think he's ever forgiven himself." "For what? It couldn't have been his fault, could it? How old was he?" "Eleven, I think. I don't know the details, but no, I don't think it could have been his fault." "What did you mean then, he's never forgiven himself? What would he have to forgive himself for?" "For living, I guess." They'd both been quiet, then, and Donna had shrunk back against her seat in the bus—they were on their way to the airport, to go to California—hoping they wouldn't realize she'd been listening.

Leo's comment about Josh had been confirmed for her a year or so later by Josh himself. They'd been in the White House a few months, and the President had invited everyone up to the Residence for chili one night. Donna had found the whole evening a little surreal; she hadn't really gotten used to their being in the White House yet, had only been in the Residence once before, and had never, in her entire life, expected to eat chili that had been personally prepared for her by the President of the United States. She'd had a good time—Bonnie and Ginger had been there, Cathy, and Mrs. Landingham—but for the first half of the evening she'd kept glancing at the door, wondering what was keeping Josh downstairs so long and when he was going to get there. He'd finally arrived, in a very strange mood that she couldn't place at all, and had ended up drinking quite a lot of wine. She'd cut him off before he made an ass of himself in front of the President, but he must have gone on to a bar with Toby and Sam afterwards, because he'd shown up at her apartment at three in the morning, very drunk. He'd kicked at her roommate's cats and sat on her couch and told her there was something he had to tell her that he couldn't tell her, he wasn't supposed to tell her, so he wouldn't tell her, but she didn't have to worry that he was going to get into Air Force One and leave her to fend for herself when the bomb dropped or someone broke a bottle of smallpox virus in the middle of the Mall. "I told them I w-wouldn't do it, Donna, so y'don' have t' worry; I'll be here w'you when it h-happens. I'm not leavin' you alone. I'm not gonna run out o'th'house again, I'm n-not. They can't make me, Donna, they can't. I said I wouldn' do it, an' I won't. I'm not gonna let you burn alone. I won't. I won't."

She'd been too busy pulling the cats off him—they weren't the kind of cats you could kick at without paying for it—and trying to calm him down to pay much attention to what he was saying at the time. It was only later, when he'd fallen asleep on the couch and she was trying to get back to sleep herself, that she realized what he'd been talking about. Her heart had twisted inside her, and she'd actually cried a little—for Joanie, for Josh, for herself. Because, if she hadn't already been in love with him, that would have done it for her. How could you hold out against a man like that, no matter how difficult he might be ninety percent of the time?

And now, after all these years, she had him. It wasn't just her with a thing about her boss anymore; he wanted her, too; in fact, it seemed he'd wanted her as long as she'd wanted him. She'd certainly wondered, at times, if he didn't, but she'd never felt sure enough to risk what she had, when she was so certain to lose it all, including her job, in the most humiliating way possible if she were wrong. She hadn't really considered carefully enough that he might be suffering under similar constraints—worse ones, really, since most sexual-harassment regulation was aimed at the boss. She'd known that, of course, in an abstract way, but he was so much older and more experienced than she was, and she was so used to taking direction from him at work, that she'd always assumed he would take the lead romantically, too, if he was really interested in her. She'd been used to thinking she was being way too obvious; apparently she hadn't been obvious enough, or at least not consistently obvious enough, for Josh to feel safe doing anything. It still amazed her that she had been the one to kiss him first. She'd never thought she'd do that; she was a perfectly liberated woman, she thought, but she'd still expected things to start with the guy, not with her. That was one outmoded idea she was glad she'd tossed out the window; if all she'd done after he gave her that watch had been to hug him, she was sure they'd still be going on exactly the way they had for the past six or seven years. But she had kissed him, and he'd kissed back, and now at last he was hers.

He was worth having, there was no question in her mind about that. He'd been the one to doubt it, which had taken her completely by surprise. The famous Lyman ego that had annoyed her so often was nowhere to be seen. She knew him intimately enough now to suspect that, where women were concerned, it had always been largely bravado, though it was hard to be sure, when his self-confidence had been stripped from him by the physical changes brought on by the cancer and the chemotherapy.

"You couldn't possibly want to," he'd said, in a choked sort of voice, when she'd started running her hands over his body and tugging on his belt buckle, back in his apartment after that first crazy kiss at the Starbucks on Wisconsin Avenue. They were in his living room; he'd been telling her about the cancer and the treatments, all the things he'd tried to hide from her for so long.

"What are you talking about?" she'd demanded, pausing for a second and wondering if there was any way she could have misread his interest in her. With her hands where they were she had what seemed like rock-solid evidence that she hadn't. He'd pulled himself away from her a little.

"I know what I look like, Donna," he'd said, his voice cracking, holding his hands out, helplessly, and gesturing up and down his body. "You couldn't—I don't want you to feel you have to—I can't stand to think of you just—"

"Just what, Josh?" She'd felt a wave of anger rising in her, not at him, but at what had happened to him to make him feel like that. She wanted to force him to say it out loud, so she could slap the idea out of bounds for once and for all. He'd looked at her wildly.

"Just—pretending—because of what I told you. Because you feel sorry for me."

"Damn it, Josh," she'd said, letting go of his belt and grabbing his face with both her hands, the way she had on the street. "I told you. I love you. I. Love. You. I've wanted you for years, and I want you now. I know I said horrible things to you about what you look like, but it was because I thought you were seeing somebody else and I was jealous. I was jealous, Josh. I want you, I've always wanted you, and I don't give a damn whether you have hair or not, or how much you weigh or what shape you're in, you're still you, and I just want you, and if you don't let me have you right now I'm probably going to explode, and then you'll have to get in those professional cleaners who go into contaminated sites and wear plastic suits and space boots and oxygen tanks and face masks, so they can scrape little bits of me off the walls and ceiling, and you'll have to explain to Leo and the President and everybody what happened to me and why I'm not at work on Monday morning. C.J., Josh, you'll have to explain it to C.J., and she'll probably break your kneecaps, and then where will you be?"

He was half-laughing and half-sobbing as he pulled her to him, though his face stayed dry. And what followed afterwards left her with absolutely nothing to complain about at all.

Or almost nothing. If his body wasn't what it had been, he had the skill and the passion to make up for it; physically she'd been left blissful, many times over. It hadn't just been a first-night thing, either: if anything the sex had gotten better, as he'd figured out more about exactly what suited her. And he was obviously putting a great deal of energy and ingenuity into making sure he wasn't leaving anything out. There was just one thing he couldn't seem to do. He could touch her and make her feel wonderful; he could hold her and make her sure he needed her; he could tell her she was sweet and funny and beautiful and brilliant, and that he'd never wanted anyone like he'd wanted her since he'd first seen her, and make her believe it. But he couldn't say the same words to her that she'd said to him.

She told herself he just wasn't that kind of guy; she told herself she'd never thought she'd get this much from him; she told herself it didn't matter. But it did. She wanted to hear him say it. She thought he wanted to—she'd see him looking at her sometimes, his face working, his eyes very bright, and she'd think he'd be about to say it, but instead he'd bury his face in her hair and start kissing her neck, or he'd pick up her hand and run his tongue over the inside of her wrist, and the moment would pass. Nothing she knew about him, not even his sister's death, really seemed to explain it. She didn't think he'd ever said it to anybody else; she thought that, if he ever said it to anybody, it would be to her. But she couldn't help wondering what it would take to get it out of him, and what on earth had happened to him to make three simple words so hard for him to say.

As she was drifting off to sleep, she found herself thinking again about the piano. Such a very strange thing for his mother to do. Donna hadn't seen Josh's mother since the shooting; she didn't like travel, and avoided it whenever possible. Even now, with Josh so sick, she was making excuses not to have to come up, although Leo had said she was feeling terrible about not seeing him, too. She seemed to get on best when she was someplace she knew, Josh said; where she could walk on the beach and paint her pictures and get her groceries delivered from the store she always used. He'd been surprised that she'd moved at all, but she and Noah had owned the house in West Palm Beach and wintered there for years, so it hadn't been much of a change; in fact, it had eliminated the twice-yearly travel. People got odd that way as they got older, of course, and, if Josh was to be believed, she'd always been a little whacky, in the nicest possible way. Fey, Donna thought; artistic and charming and fey. Donna had been struck, when she met her, by the resemblance to her daughter's picture, though that might have been only physical. Josh obviously took after his father. Donna wondered if Mrs. Lyman really might be slipping a gear or two. It was hard to explain the piano any other way.

oooooo


	3. Chapter 3

Part 3-

"Hey, Donna. How's it going?"

"Fine, thanks, C.J. How about you?"

"Oh, fine. How's Josh?"

"He's fine, C.J. He really enjoyed seeing everybody the other night—thanks for coming over."

"Thanks for thinking of it. I had a great time."

"Yeah, me too. We hadn't had the whole gang together in so long."

"It was wonderful to see Sam."

"And Danny."

"Donna?"

"Yeah, C.J.?"

"How is he really?"

"He's okay."

"He didn't look that good by the end of the evening."

"He was pretty tired. He does get headaches. And he still throws up sometimes, but not nearly as often. He's really doing a lot better on these new drugs."

"Really? That's good. He does seem to have gained some weight back."

"The new drugs aren't as hard on his stomach. Plus he's getting a lot more rest, and the Bartlets have been amazing about the food."

"Manuel's cooking every day—Josh is a lucky guy."

"Yeah."

"Yeah. Right. The headaches—they're really the main side-effect, now?"

"I think so. I—I don't really know, C.J. He doesn't talk about it. I looked these drugs up on the internet when he started on them, and they can do a lot of things to you, scary things. But there's been nothing I can see so far, except the headaches, and sometimes the nausea, and he was having those before."

"Scary things, you said? What kind of scary things?"

"These drugs do stuff to the nervous system. Some people get numbness in their hands and feet. Some people get pains shooting all over their body, really bad pains. That's some of it."

"What else?"

"Partial paralysis, deafness, blindness."

"God."

"It doesn't happen very often. And it's usually temporary."

"Usually?"

"Usually. It's pretty rare."

"Donna—"

"Really, C.J., he's okay. It's just that he gets tired easily, and the headaches."

"Yeah. That's good, I guess."

"Yes, it is."

"Donna?"

"Yes, C.J.?"

"This whole thing is such total shit, isn't it? I hate it."

"Me too."

oooooo

"Josh?"

"Yeah, Donna?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, Donna."

"You sure?"

"Sure. I'm sure."

oooooo

"Josh?"

"Yeah, Donna?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure."

"You're not, are you?"

"Sure, I'm sure. I'm okay."

"Is it your head again?"

"A bit."

"Have you taken anything for it?"

"It really doesn't help."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Nah, don't worry about it. I'll be okay. Tell me about what happened at work today."

"Won't it make your head hurt more?"

"I like your voice. It's soothing. And if you come over here, there are other things about you I like a lot, too."

"Well, Peterson is really giving us a hard time about S85 . . ."

oooooo

"Josh?"

"Yeah, Donna?"

"If that gets much worse, I think we should take you in."

"No thanks, Donna."

"Come on, Josh, they've got stronger painkillers at the hospital. They've got doctors who can write you prescriptions for stronger painkillers."

"I've tried just about everything they can prescribe."

"Well, they could give you something there, then. Just for tonight. Just so you get a little relief."

"I'm fine."

"You're not!"

"Well, I'm trying to be."

"I know you are, sweetheart, but that head is killing you."

"It'll go away in a bit."

"Let me take you in, Josh."

"No thanks."

"Why, Josh?"

"Just—no."

"Why not?"

"I just don't want to."

"Please, Josh. I hate to see you like this."

"Donna—"

"What, Josh?"

"Donna, you know what the numbers are, don't you?"

"Josh?"

"You know there's a better-than-even chance that before the year's out I'm going to end up in that hospital on a morphine drip. And if I do, I won't be coming out."

"Josh—"

"I'd just like to spend as much time as possible out here first, you know?"

"Oh Josh."

"I'll be okay."

"You will, sweetheart. You have to be. You will."

oooooo

Josh moved restlessly about the apartment, trying to get away from the pain in his head. He had the idea that if he just kept moving, sooner or later he'd outpace it. And moving around gave him something else to think about. If he just kept on his feet, if he just kept going, sooner or later it would stop. It always did.

These headaches weren't like the ones he'd had with the earlier drugs. Those had been ever-present, but fairly low-grade most of the time, though they'd certainly been capable of working themselves up into ugly migraines complete with dancing spots before the eyes. These were different. They came and went for no apparent reason at all, and when they came, the pain was like nothing he'd ever had in his head before. And they were getting worse. He was glad Donna was still at work; he couldn't have kept still and pretended to listen to her talking, today. He knew she knew he wasn't really following what she said when he did that, but the pretense helped him, and he hoped it helped her a little, too. He knew how hard all this was on her.

That bothered him, a lot. None of this was the way it should have been, the way he'd pictured it in the odd moments when he used to let himself really go and dream about how things might be if he and Donna didn't have to work together. Most of the time he hadn't thought about it—he was good at that, he'd had a lot of practice not thinking about things over the years—but sometimes he hadn't been able to help himself, and then he'd thought about what he'd do when they were finished at the White House and Donna wasn't his assistant any more. It had always been a difficult fantasy to work out in any detail, because he'd never really been able to imagine himself in his next job, with a different assistant. But sometimes he'd ignore that side of things, and just think about himself with Donna. He'd planned it all out—how he would ask her out the first time, how he would woo her, how he'd convince her that he could be more than just her uptight, difficult, pain-in-the-ass, jackass boss. He'd thought about how he'd kiss her the first time; he'd thought about how he'd do everything with her the first time. And absolutely none of his fantasies had ever involved inflicting on her a bald, emaciated, possibly dying man with nausea and violent head pains. Whenever he thought about what he was doing to her life, he felt a wave of self-disgust wash over him that sometimes left him being physically sick. Though it was always hard to tell what was the result of the drugs and what was purely psychological in origin, these days.

Thinking about it now, he had to stop pacing and grab onto the back of the couch to steady himself. He swallowed hard. He thought he might be going to be sick—he'd better get to the bathroom—but when he started to move, the pain cracked through his head like a flash of lightening, blinding him for a minute. He hung onto the couch, breathing heavily, trying to stay in control. It cracked again, and he groaned; he couldn't help himself. This was the worst it had ever been. Another searing flash, and he was doubled over. Another, and he was on his knees. And then an explosion that seemed to go on and on, jerking sounds out of him that he didn't want to make. And then, at last, it stopped, and there was just the sound of his ragged breathing and his racing, pounding heart.

oooooo

Donna fussed at the traffic all the way home. She'd run late at work tonight—with Josh away, there was twice as much to do, trying to keep the various people who were covering for him on track—and then there'd been an accident on the bridge at Rock Creek, backing up the cars for blocks. It was with a sigh of relief that she finally pulled her car into the second parking place behind Josh's townhouse. Normally it was taken by Josh's tenants in the apartment upstairs, but the new ones had just moved to the city and didn't have a car yet, so Donna was using their spot. Georgie, his tenant in the basement flat, didn't need a place; he'd never owned a car.

Donna smiled, thinking about him; he was an odd old bird, but she liked him, and she'd always been grateful to him for having heard Josh break the window that Christmas and having quite possibly stopped him from doing anything worse. She didn't know Georgie's whole story, but she knew Josh let him have the place for next to nothing, and that he took care of most of the odd jobs and repairs around the house in return. He called himself "the super," and was intensely proud of working for the White House Deputy Chief of Staff and living in his house.

Donna liked knowing there was someone around when Josh was at home during the day, though Georgie was a lot slower and deafer than he used to be. She wasn't sure he'd hear a window breaking any more, especially when he had his t.v. on or his record player going. He had an old-fashioned turntable and a big collection of vinyl records, mostly classical, and sometimes lately when he had a symphony or an opera on it had been so loud Josh had had to go downstairs and ask him to turn it down a little. He always stayed down there a long time, talking. "He's lonely," he'd say, when she laughed at him about it. It was one of the things she loved him for, she thought, as she climbed the stairs to the back door, that sympathetic patience with a crockety old man. So unlike the impatience and sarcastic mockery he was noted for at work.

She slipped her key in the lock and peered in through the window in the door, frowning a little. The back windows were dark, which didn't surprise her, but she could see clear through to the front of the house here, and there were no lights on there, either. That was strange. Maybe Josh had gone out for a walk. It wasn't like him not to be back before she was, though, and she was later than usual tonight.

She dropped her things by the back door, and made her way to the living room at the front, switching on lights and checking rooms as she went. Maybe he'd fallen asleep. That must be it; he didn't usually take a nap at this time of day, but his head had been so bad last night he must have been worn out today. She'd checked with him during the morning and after lunch, and he'd sounded okay, but probably by the end of the afternoon . . . .

He heard her open the back door and come in. Heard her steps coming through the house.

"Donna? Is that you?"

"Of course it's me, Josh. Let me get some lights on. Why are you sitting in the dark?"

He could hear her footsteps as she crossed the room, the click of the switch as she turned on the lamp beside the sofa.

She straightened, looked in the direction his voice had come from, and tensed with alarm. He was sitting on the floor, his back against the back of the couch. His face was white, his breathing was quick and shallow, and he was trembling all over. "Josh? What's the matter? What's wrong?"

In a voice she'd never heard before he said, "I can't see you, Donna. I can't see anything. I can't see."

oooooo


	4. Chapter 4

Part 4—

Leo looked at his watch. It wasn't like Donna to be late. He'd been asking her to come to Senior Staff ever since Josh went on sick leave, so she'd be up to speed on what Josh's office needed to do that day. It helped her help the various people who'd been called in to cover for him, and it helped Leo make sure nothing had been forgotten. Leo sighed. He really missed his deputy. Last week Josh had been begging to be allowed to come back in, even if only for a couple of hours a day. He'd been looking so much better that Leo had been tempted to let him, but the President had been very clear about not letting Josh do anything that might set back his recovery, even a little. And Leo had been troubled by the look on Josh's face after the party the other night. He wasn't sure Josh was really up for as much as he'd thought. They'd just have to keep scrambling to cover for a while longer.

"We'll wait another minute," he was saying, when Margaret came in. "There's a call for you on line 1, Leo." "Tell them to wait," he said, impatiently. Really, sometimes he wondered about Margaret. She should know by now that he didn't like to be interrupted during Senior Staff. "It's Donna, Leo. She sounds upset."

Leo felt his heart skip a beat and then start racing as he reached for the phone. "Donna? It's Leo. What is it? . . . You're where? What happened? . . . Jesus. . . . Jesus. . . . Not at all? Nothing? . . . . Jesus. Do they think it's temporary, or . . . ? They don't know? They have to do more tests? Yes. Yes, I see. . . . Yes, of course. Of course not. Don't worry about anything here, Donna; we'll take care of it. Tell Josh not to worry, either. About work, I mean. How is he feeling? Yes. Yes, of course, I can imagine. You think you'll be there for a few hours? I'll tell Margaret to free up something in my schedule so I can get over. . . . Tell Josh we're with him. I'm glad you're there, Donna. Yes, all right, I'll talk to you later. Keep me in touch, please, until I can get over there. Thanks, Donna. Take care."

Leo put the receiver down carefully, and looked around the room at his staff. The new faces, Josh's covers, looked curious or politely concerned. Will looked anxious. C.J. and Toby both looked stricken.

"That was Donna," Leo said, unnecessarily. "She won't be in today. Geoff, Frank, I'll have the pool send someone over, but you'll have to work out the schedule between yourselves. We'll cut whatever we can; I'm going to need to be out of the office for part of the afternoon."

"Leo," C.J. pleaded and Toby growled, almost in unison.

Leo looked from one to the other, holding each one's gaze in turn. When he spoke, he seemed to be aware only of them.

"It's Josh," he said. "They're at the hospital, having tests done. Something happened last night, and he can't see."

"He can't see?" "Josh?" "Do you mean his vision's gone blurry, or . . . ?"

"He can't see at all. He's gone completely blind."

oooooo

"I want to see him, Leo."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea right now, Mr. President."

"Damn it, Leo; I'm not the President on this one. I'm just Jed, and it's Josh, and I want to see him."

"You are the President, Mr. President, and I don't think he's ready to see you yet. To talk to you, I mean. To have you see him."

"How can I let him know I care what's happening to him, if I don't see him?"

"I'm telling him, Mr. President. Or rather, Donna is; he doesn't want me to be there, either. Or Toby or C.J. or anyone. Just Donna."

"Thank God for Donna."

"Yes, indeed."

oooooo

Two weeks later, Donna had to force herself up the stairs to Josh's apartment. She felt completely exhausted: wiped out, drained, empty. It wasn't really a physical thing; she'd had plenty of sleep last night, she'd eaten a decent breakfast and lunch, she'd worked a much shorter day than usual. It was her emotions that were pulling her apart, she knew that. She just didn't know what to do about it.

Being with Josh for the last two weeks was one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do. It was harder than being with him in the hospital after he'd been shot. It was harder than watching him try to cope after he'd seen Stanley Keyworth and been told he had PTSD. It was harder than finding out he had cancer. She thought it might even have been harder than what had happened to her during college, though that was a toss-up; she'd been young then, with no experience of hard things to compare to, so that had made an indelible impression of awfulness on her mind. She was pretty sure, though, that if someone were suddenly to appear in front of her and offer her the choice of reliving the college thing again now, as an adult, and having to relive the last two weeks, she'd choose the former. She knew she would if it meant she could change things for Josh, so he wouldn't have had to go through this at all.

The thing about the shooting was that, after the first few days, they had known he was going to recover. And although there had been some setbacks, every day they had been able to see that he was getting better. It had been the same way with the PTSD; by the time Josh had had his defenses cracked open by Dr. Keyworth, it was obvious that he was already starting to climb out of the dark hole the shooting had dropped him into. You never really stopped having PTSD, but you could get to a point where it didn't affect you very often, and where you could control the effects when it did. Josh had worked his way to that point quite steadily, though Donna knew it had been anything but easy at times. Even the cancer—once she had got over the shock of it, and once Josh had started talking to her again, she'd been able to convince herself that, no matter what the statistics were, Josh was going to get better. All they had to do was to keep going and get through the chemo, and everything would get easier. It had even seemed as if things were getting better faster than they could have hoped, when his oncologist had switched him to the new drugs and the initial effects had been so much less difficult for him than what he'd been through on the old ones. And Josh himself had seemed so buoyed up, ever since that afternoon after the President's party, when he'd given her her beautiful watch, and they'd finally thrown away their inhibitions and become lovers. That business the other night, with him talking about going into the hospital and not coming out, had startled her; she hadn't realized he was still having dark moments like that. Except for his doubts about being attractive enough for her in his present condition, he'd been so cheerful and optimistic around her, so much like his old self. It was too easy to forget how good Josh was at hiding things, at covering himself.

He hadn't been able to cover a lot for the past two weeks, though. He didn't say much; he didn't complain; and he certainly didn't break down. But Donna thought she'd never seen him closer to it. His emotions were written all over his face: he was obviously shattered, devastated. And who wouldn't be, she thought, angrily. Who wouldn't be?

After all the tests had been done, no one was any closer to being able to tell them exactly what had happened or what he could expect. There was some neurological damage, clearly, but it might repair itself. Or it might not. The shooting pain was a common side-effect of the drugs he'd been taking. The blindness was a far less common effect, as she already knew. Sometimes it was temporary; sometimes it was permanent. As for which it might be for Josh, either no one knew, or no one was willing to say.

The HMO had promised to dispatch an OT as soon as possible. Donna hadn't been sure at first what an OT was, but it turned out to be an Occupational Therapist, a pert, petite blonde whom Donna had disliked immediately—not out of any sense of jealousy, but simply out of distaste for the woman's manner, which was hearty and patronizing. Her name was Briany. Donna thought she treated Josh like a very small child. "Come along then! Stand up straight! We don't want everyone thinking you don't care about yourself, do we, just because you can't see?" It was excruciating to listen to; she could only imagine what it must feel like to Josh. He said nothing and did what he was told, but everything about his face and manner indicated his defeat. He was obviously completely humiliated when she suggested that he pee sitting down: "You don't want to miss and make a mess for your girlfriend now, do you? Not that that would be anything new, I'll bet," she'd added in an aside to Donna, quite loud enough for him to hear. "Men never do shoot straight, do they? If only their mothers would train them to sit in the first place, we wouldn't have so much clean-up to have to do after them!" "It's never been a problem," Donna had answered, in her iciest voice, but the OT had been entirely unsquashed. Donna vented her feelings about it to Leo later that day—"She's a nightmare! She's going to destroy him,"—and Briany had been replaced by Chris, a round young man from the Philippines, who was a definite improvement. He gave both Josh and Donna some useful tips about coping with everyday problems, like dressing and eating, and tried to talk to Josh about politics. Josh answered his questions politely, but as briefly as possible, without going off on any of his usual rants or tirades. He seemed to be going through the motions people asked him to, but it was obvious that he didn't really want to.

The HMO also dispatched a psychologist, but after the first two visits Josh refused to see her again. He didn't want to talk to anyone else, either. "What's the point, Donna?" he'd said wearily, when she'd urged him to call the therapist Stanley Keyworth had recommended after the PTSD diagnosis, or anyone else, for that matter. "I've seen enough therapists to last me the rest of my life." When she wouldn't let it go, he said, "They all do the same things, say the same things, try to get you to tell them the same things. I was sick of it years ago. I don't want to do it again now, and I don't see what the point would be. I know what's the matter with me. There just isn't anything I can do about it." Donna let it go. She didn't have a choice; you couldn't force someone into counseling. Josh was being forced into too many things as it was, anyway.

Leo had told Donna to take as much time for Josh as he needed, but after the first few days Josh had told her quietly to go back to work. "Leo needs you," he'd said. "I need it, too." "You want me to go?" Donna had found it hard to hide the hurt in her voice. "You don't want me here with you?" "Of course I want you here with me," he had answered, a little roughly. "But I need you to go. I can't keep you with me like a nursemaid, twenty-four hours a day. I've got to be able to manage on my own." "But are you ready to?" she'd asked, doubtfully. "Yeah," he'd said simply. "I've got to be. And besides, you need it, too. You're going crazy, stuck in here with me all day."

He was right. That was the hardest thing for Donna about the whole experience, admitting to herself that Josh was right: she was going crazy, spending twenty-four hours a day with him. She'd been used to spending twelve, fourteen, sometimes eighteen or twenty hours a day in his company at work, but that had been different. For one thing, she hadn't been with him every second. For another, there'd been work to do. For a third, he'd been a completely different person to be around. He'd been egotistical, sarcastic, loud, demanding, and infuriating, and if someone had offered Donna a chance to spend twenty-four-hour days with that Josh again, she'd have grabbed it and felt as if she'd been given a one-way ticket to Hawaii. Any Josh would be better than this one, sitting so quietly in a corner of the sofa, defeat written all over his face and sounding in every word he said. His depression was like a great, dark blanket spreading itself over the apartment, suffocating both of them. Donna understood it and pitied it and wanted to do anything she could to lift it off him, but the prospect of escaping from it for a few hours a day filled her with a terrible joy. She hated herself for wanting to get out, but she couldn't help it. So she grabbed the excuses Josh was offering her, and went back to work because Leo needed her and because Josh said he was ready to be alone, even though she wasn't sure that he was ready at all.

But she was going crazy at work, too. No matter how much she wanted to get out of the apartment, she'd no sooner close the door behind her than she'd want to throw it open and rush back in again. She hated leaving him, hated thinking of him sitting there, by himself, alone, in the dark. He couldn't read, or write, or watch t.v. He couldn't browse the internet. He couldn't go out for a walk: Chris was supposed to start working with him on that, but they hadn't got to it yet, and Donna had the impression that it was definitely going to take a while before Josh was able to negotiate the sidewalks of Georgetown safely on his own. And, other than the hour a day he spent with Chris, he didn't want anyone to come over and be with him. He'd nixed the idea of hiring any sort of daytime companion—"I don't need a nanny," he'd said—and he declined his friends' requests to visit, politely but firmly. He talked to them on the phone when they called, but when they asked if they could come over he just said, "Maybe another time," and nobody had the nerve to force the point. He didn't call them. He didn't even call Donna; she called him, half-a-dozen times a day, but he never tried to reach her when she was at work. He could have listened to the t.v. or radio, or to any of the stack of books-on-tape people had sent him, but she didn't think he did, or not for very long; she never heard them playing in the background when she spoke to him on the phone. She couldn't imagine what he did with himself all day.

All she knew was that, when she got home, she'd reach down to hug him where he was sitting on the sofa, and he'd pull her to him with a desperation she'd never felt before. He'd wrap his arms around her so tightly she thought her ribs were going to break, and bury his face in hers. The sex that followed was more passionate than any she'd ever had, or imagined having. But it was also sadder. He knew exactly what to do to make her feel wonderful, and he did it again and again, in every way imaginable, but he did it almost wordlessly. He'd been a vocal lover before, witty and teasing, as well as noisy when he came. Now he was so quiet it made her want to cry.

And he didn't come. No matter what he was doing, and no matter what she did to him in return, he didn't come. Couldn't come. He was aroused enough, obviously turned on; that wasn't the problem. She knew she wasn't the problem, either; she was doing all the things that had worked with him before, and everything else she could think of, but he just couldn't get to the point of release. He didn't really seem to care. He'd just say, "It's okay," or "Don't worry about it," pull himself away from her a little and start working on her body in another way, trying to tease another spasm of pleasure out of her, and usually succeeding. If she let him, he'd keep it up for hours. She'd never thought it would be possible to get tired of good sex, and this wasn't just good sex he was giving her, it was great sex, amazing sex, but she was getting tired of it. She wished he'd just stop and talk to her instead. But talking seemed to be the last thing he wanted to do.

oooooo

Josh heard the door click shut behind Donna, and felt his way from the bedroom door, where he'd been standing when she said goodbye, to the couch in the living room. He stretched himself out, and started counting the minutes till she'd come back again. She was working short days; she'd be home by five. It was seven-thirty. He knew that because Leo had got him a clock that announced the time in a stiff, female voice when he pushed a button on top. Five hundred and seventy minutes to go. Chris came at 1:00 and stayed for an hour, which broke up the wait a little. Not that Josh really cared; if Chris had offered to stay longer, Josh would have declined. He didn't actually mind Chris, but he didn't want him there, either. It was harder when someone was there; you had to try to pay attention to what they were saying, had to try to pretend to be all right. The only person he wanted was Donna, and he simply had to wait five hundred and seventy minutes before he could have her again.

He'd tried listening to the t.v. Normally he was compulsive about CNN and C-Span, and he followed the major news shows whenever he could. Now he couldn't bear them. If he couldn't be in that world, playing an active role in it, helping to shape it, he couldn't stand to have to think about it. And he didn't think he'd ever be in that world, that way, again.

He'd tried listening to the radio, but the incessant blare of the ads and the triviality of the lyrics in the popular songs got to him quickly, and he hadn't bothered turning it on again. He could have tuned into WGMS or WETA, the NPR station, but he wanted to hear classical music even less than he wanted to hear the news. There was too much political commentary on NPR, anyway; it set that same hungry ache going in him that CNN and C-Span did. The cheerful roar of the crowds on the sports broadcasts had a similar effect. His own CD's—a lot of 60's and 70's pop and rock—touched off too many happy memories for him to want to listen to them now. The books-on-tape were either novels, which he couldn't care less about, or political biographies. No matter where he turned, he bumped into the ghosts of his former self. It was easier just to lie on the couch and count the minutes till Donna's return.

He was practicing counting them out, sixty seconds at a time, trying to get just the right pace and rhythm to match the clock. He'd been working on it all week, and had got to the point where he could go for fifteen minutes at a stretch and be pretty close to the time the electronic woman's voice announced when he hit the button on the clock. Four times an hour; he wouldn't let himself hit it more often than that. There was something a little frightening about the idea of pushing a button every few minutes, just to hear a mechanical voice. He could easily imagine going over the edge, if he let himself, and Donna coming home to find him mindlessly pushing the button up and down, over and over, without stopping: "Five-o-three. Five-o-three-and-two-seconds. Five-o-three-and-four-seconds. Five-o-three-and-six-seconds . . ."

He was close enough to the edge as it was. He knew he shouldn't be doing this; he knew he should be finding some constructive way to use his time, not wasting it lying on his back, counting seconds and minutes. Counting time. He laughed to himself, bitterly. He remembered that day a couple of months ago when he'd decided he was going to buy time. All the time he could get, he remembered thinking; whatever it costs, it'll be worth it. Now he had time to burn, and nothing had ever seemed more worthless to him. When he'd thought that, he'd thought he'd be spending whatever time he got looking, and loving what he saw. Looking at the sunlight falling through the yellow leaves. Looking at Donna's hair. Looking at her face, her beautiful face, all lit up with that spectacular smile. He'd been so struck by a sense of light, that day, and he'd thought he'd be able to go on, surrounded by that light, filled up by it. He'd been thinking the price he'd have to pay for time would be pain, and he'd been willing to do that. It had never crossed his mind that the price he'd end up paying might be the light itself.

Ironically enough, the pain had mostly ended with that last burst in his head. But the light was gone. And now the expensive watch he'd bought himself, when the chemotherapy had really started to get bad, was lying unused and useless in a drawer somewhere. It had been a kind of promise to himself: yes, it is worth spending all this money on this thing they say will last a lifetime; yes, I will be looking at this when I'm an old man. Now he couldn't see it to read the time. That had been the worst thing, that first day, when the pain in his head stopped but the light didn't come back and he'd realized he couldn't see: not being able to read his watch, not knowing how much time had gone by, or how long he still had to wait until Donna came back and found him. He'd been too confused and too frightened to move, and even if he'd found his phone he wouldn't have been able to call anyone: he'd been working on that since with Chris, and it was surprisingly difficult, telling which key was which in the dark. But he hadn't minded that as much as he'd minded not knowing the time. That was another reason he was practicing counting out the seconds and the minutes: he wanted to have the clock in his head, in case the female voice stopped working and he was left alone in the dark again with no idea what time it was. The horrible idea had occurred to him that that might be what it was like to be dead: to be alone in the dark, conscious, but with no way to keep track of the time passing, and no end to the time that would pass. It was the first time he'd really been afraid of dying; before he'd always thought it would just mean an end to the pain. Now the thought of it made his stomach churn and his whole body shake. Which was another good thing about counting out the seconds: if you didn't want to lose track of them, you couldn't stop to think. He'd lost track now, so he hit the button on the clock to start over again. Seven-forty-two. Five hundred and fifty-eight minutes to go.

But six or seven minutes later, his mind wandered off again. It was hard to keep it focused on the numbers when there was so much else to think about. Especially Donna. Beautiful Donna. So beautiful Donna, that he might never see again. Donna, loving, giving Donna, that he was taking too much from when he couldn't give her anything back in return. Only sex, for what that was worth. It was worth a lot to him—without the touch and the physical closeness at the end of the day, he thought he really would go out of his mind—but he still didn't think it could be worth that much to Donna. She was young, she was intelligent, she was heart-stoppingly beautiful, and she was tied by affection and loyalty to a sick, blind man. A bald and ugly sick, blind man. Who spilled his food down his shirt, and couldn't make a cup of coffee without help. And you did it to her, a voice in his head kept screaming at him. You took her friendship and her pity and held onto it to save yourself, and you're dragging her down with you now. If you die, she'll have gone through all this for nothing; and it will get worse, a lot worse, before it's over, and she'll have to watch it and go through it with you. And if you don't die, it will be worse still—she's too good to leave you; she'll be stuck with you for the rest of her life. And how are you going to make that worth her while, when you can't see to piss straight standing up?

I might get better, he thought, desperately. I might get better. I might be able to see again. Hit the clock, and keep counting. But the self-loathing that washed over him every day always left behind scummy tide-marks that he couldn't brush off. It was the reason that, try as he would to lose himself in Donna's lovemaking at the end of the day, he couldn't come for her anymore. The thought of emptying himself into her was just too disgusting. She deserved better than that.

oooooo


	5. Chapter 5

Part 5—

"Josh?" Donna said, hesitantly.

"Mmmm?" His face was buried in her neck, where he was planting little kisses. She shivered. They felt wonderful.

"Stop for a minute, Josh, please?" He didn't stop. "Josh, please stop."

"Why, Donna?" His voice sounded thick and strange.

"I don't want to do this right now."

He stopped immediately. She could feel his whole body go tense against hers. He swallowed, hard, before asking, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Josh. I just don't want to do this right now."

"Okay." His grip on her loosened a little, but she could still feel the tension that seemed to radiate out from him. "Okay. I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry, Josh. It felt wonderful. I just—I'd like to do something else sometimes."

"Of course." His voice sounded flat. He unwrapped his arms from her and started to push himself away a little. Donna wanted to kick herself. She wondered if she shouldn't just pull him back and start kissing him, pass it off as a joke, but she wasn't sure she'd get the courage back to try this again.

"I'd just like to talk more, Josh. We used to talk all the time. You're awfully quiet these days; I miss it."

"What do you want to talk about?"

"Anything, really. Work: I want to know what you think we should be doing to get some of these bills passed. Or the Ukrainian monetary crisis—how do you think we should respond to it? Or the morality of maintaining publicly funded zoos. Or theoretical physics, even though I know nothing about it and I've forgotten everything you used to try to tell me. Or maybe just you. Or me. Or us. Just something with words, and not just sex all the time."

"I'm sorry," he said again, his voice flatter than ever. "I'm sorry you haven't liked it. I should have thought; of course it would get boring for you."

"Oh, Josh. I didn't mean that. It's been wonderful—you're a wonderful lover. The best. But you have a wonderful mind, too, Josh, and I want to know it again. I want to know you, to talk to you again. I haven't stopped wanting you to make love to me; you were making me shiver just now. I just want the other, too."

"I just—I don't think I have anything to talk about, Donna. I don't know anything that's happening anymore. I can't go into the office. I can't read a briefing paper or an op-ed piece in the _Post_ or the _New York Times_.

"It's only been two weeks, Josh; you haven't missed that much. And you could listen to the news."

He didn't answer her, but she could see from the way he was breathing and the expression on his face that she was straying onto thin ice.

"But it doesn't have to be about work or the news if you don't want to talk about that, Josh. It really could be about anything. About—about what your first grade teacher was like. Or your first crush. I've known you seven years, and I don't know those things about you. And you don't know them about me."

"I do, too. Your first-grade teacher was Mrs. Pogue; she slapped Johnny Howard for getting homesick and crying in class, and told Marcia Petersen she'd break all her crayons if she didn't stop drawing with just the black one."

"You remember that?"

"Of course I do. You've only talked about it like a thousand times."

"It was Johnny Petersen and Marcia Howard, but I'm still impressed."

"You shouldn't be. You really have told me about it pretty often."

"What about my first crush?"

"Scott Swineheart. You were in second grade, and you had been out sick for a whole week and had to stay in at recess, and he passed pussy willows through the window to you and made you an April valentine."

"Wow. And I thought you never listened. You never looked like you were listening."

"I can do two things at once; it's called multitasking. And besides, who could forget a name like Scott Swineheart?"

"Don't mock his name. It wasn't his fault, and he was very sweet."

"He had good taste, anyway. As long as he doesn't try the pussy-willows-and-valentines trick again, I'll let him go unmocked."

"They moved to Denver at the end of the year; I haven't seen him since I was eight years old."

"I expect he's still pining for you."

"Poor boy."

"Poor man, you mean. I feel for him. He shall go unmocked."

"There must be something you don't know about me that you want to know."

"I want to know everything about you, Donna."

"And I want to know everything about you. Don't think you've escaped telling me about your first grade teacher or your first crush."

"They were one and the same. She was about nineteen, and had red hair and this really great smile, and used to get down on the floor and play Matchbox cars with us when she was supposed to be teaching us math."

"Really?"

"Really. She'd get us to count the cars, and then add them and take them away. And she baked cookies and brought them in to do the same thing. Her name was Judy. We were supposed to call her Miss Something, but she told us she liked Judy better."

"She sounds amazing."

"She was. She lasted about three weeks, before someone ratted her out to the school board, and they let her go."

"For what?"

"For telling us to call her Judy, I guess. And for getting down on the floor instead of standing at the front of the room with a pointer. And maybe for wearing her skirts too short and having really great legs."

"Josh!"

"She did, I tell you."

"You were six!"

"Five, actually, but I still knew a great leg when I saw one."

Well, that had gone well, Donna thought, as she drifted off to sleep that night, Josh's arms wrapped around her and her head tucked under his chin. Surprisingly well. She'd even seen a flash of his dimples for the first time since his world had gone black. Now, if she could only think up enough questions whose answers might include hot women with great legs, maybe it could go that well every night. Maybe it could go even better, and she could finally get Josh back to the point where he could get some satisfaction again. . . .

It didn't go that well again for quite a while. It certainly didn't go that well the next day, when Josh had a worse time getting through his five-hundred-and-seventy minutes than usual. Realizing that Donna did, in fact, need something more from him than sex had shaken him up; he wasn't at all sure that he could go on satisfying her that way. The fact that he'd succeeded in bringing the banter again was exhilarating—she'd obviously enjoyed it—but only temporarily. It didn't make the darkness go away, or the thoughts about dying, or being blind for the rest of his life. It didn't keep him from spilling his coffee at breakfast, or breaking his shins over the chair he'd been sitting in because he'd forgotten to push it back under the table the way Chris was always reminding him to do. It didn't keep his mother from phoning, or him from hearing the distress in her voice as they talked. All it did was make him worry about how he was going to make things light and funny that night.

He tried turning on the t.v. and listening to the news for a while, to see if he could stand it long enough to glean some tidbit he could use to keep Donna happy later. But the talking heads were talking about the mess at the White House apparently caused by the absence of its Deputy Chief of Staff. "I've heard that President Bartlet is considering several candidates as possible replacements for Josh Lyman, if he shouldn't return." "But when do you think the President will make a decision, Mark? The Administration is clearly stalled in its progress with key legislation. They're handling every issue that comes up on an ad hoc basis." "That's because they're scrambling to cover for Lyman." "When do you think a decision might be made?" "Well, that's the million-dollar question inside the Beltway this morning, Jim. Of course everyone wishes Josh Lyman well, but the story that's going around is that he's not likely to recover enough to come back to work. The President needs to cut loose now, and choose a permanent replacement, or his legislative agenda is going to be completely blocked." "I'm surprised he hasn't done it before this." "President Bartlet is known as a very loyal man—foolishly loyal, at times." "Leo McGarry isn't. I'd have thought he'd have had the balls to do what needs to be done before now." "Well, Josh Lyman has always been McGarry's golden boy, you know. That's undoubtedly why he survived the Big Tobacco debacle two years ago . . ." "And there's the PR factor. It doesn't look good to fire a dying man, especially one who gained as much public sympathy as Josh did when he was shot at Rosslyn." "Is Josh actually dying?" "Well, of course, one can't say for sure. But a story in 'The Washington Times' this morning quotes an unnamed source as saying . . . ."

Josh turned the set off, feeling sick, and brooded about what he'd heard for the rest of the day. By the time Donna got home he was too far down even to try to talk to her. He held her a little less closely than usual, answered her questions in monosyllables, and didn't seem deeply engaged in the sex that followed. For the first time ever, he let her go before she really wanted him to, and rolled over on his side, pretending to want to go to sleep. Donna was baffled, and concerned.

"What's the matter, Josh?"

"Nothing."

"Did something happen today?"

"No."

"Does your head hurt again?"

"No."

"You don't seem well."

"I'm fine. I just want to go to sleep now."

"Okay. 'Night."

"'Night."

He waited until she'd fallen asleep to get out of bed and make his way cautiously out of the room. He didn't know what to do with himself. He couldn't stop the voices talking in his head; couldn't stop his own voice, or his mother's, talking there too. In the end he stretched himself out on the bathroom floor, because he was hot and restless, and it felt cold and still. He lay there on his stomach, listening to Georgie's music coming up through the plumbing, and hearing his mother saying over and over again, "It's time, Josh. It's time. It's time. It's time."

Josh called Leo in the morning. It was the first time he'd tried to use the phone without Chris beside him, and he had to punch the number in three times before he got it right. It was only when he heard Margaret picking up that he remembered he'd had it on speed-dial.

"Leo? It's Josh."

"Josh! How are you? It's great to hear from you. What are you up to?"

"Not much. Listen, Leo, I've been thinking—I should resign."

"Resign? Josh, no."

"Really, Leo. It would be best for everybody."

"You're entitled to sick leave, Josh. Your job will be waiting for you when you're better."

"But nobody knows when that's going to be now, Leo. Or even if it's going to be. It was one thing when I was just doing the chemo; there was an end date attached to that, you knew what to expect. But with me like this—"

"The President won't hear of it, Josh."

"Then you need to make him hear it, Leo."

"I'm not accustomed to being told what to do by my deputy."

"I can't be your deputy if I can't see, Leo. You know that. You need to get somebody in there who's permanent, who can really take over the job and do it properly."

"I have somebody in, Josh. I have two somebodies, Geoff and Frank. They're both very capable, though neither one of them is the man I want in the job permanently."

"You need someone permanent, Leo. Too much stuff is slipping through the cracks. It's all they're talking about out there, that the President's legislative agenda is in jeopardy. The President can't afford that. You can't afford it. I'm not going to let you afford it. I'm resigning, Leo. Today. Now."

"The President won't accept your resignation, Josh."

"He'll have to. He can't force me to work. I can't work, anyway."

"Then you'll resign and the position will go unfilled. We're fine with Geoff and Frank, Josh. They do a good job, an excellent job. It takes two of them to do what you did alone, but they're doing it well. We've had a few bumps lately, but bumps happen when you're making a transition. Things are smoothing out already, especially with Donna back. She's amazing."

"You don't have to tell me that."

"No, I know I don't. But Josh—you're pretty damn good, too. We don't want to lose you. I'll tell the President what you've told me, and he'll tell you to shove it, and C.J. will tell the press that you've offered your resignation and it's been refused. End of conversation."

"Leo—"

"Goodbye, Josh."

oooooo

"Good morning, Josh."

"Mr. President? Good morning, sir."

"How are you, Josh?"

"I'm fine, sir. How are you, sir?"

"I've been better, Josh. I'm a little irked this morning. It seems I'm having some trouble with my Deputy Chief of Staff."

"Sir—"

"It seems he won't listen to my Chief of Staff. Leo McGarry's an important man, Josh; he's my right-hand man. He's also your boss. You need to listen to him."

"Sir—"

"I've always found it a good idea to listen to Leo, myself. He's a wise man, Josh. When he says someone's the right person for a job, I listen to him. Especially when he's saying what I already know for myself."

"But, sir—"

"I won't accept your resignation, Josh. I wanted you to hear that from the horse's mouth. And I'm quite a horse—a two-time triple-crown winner. Best in Show."

"Sir—"

"Do I have to remind you that you serve at the pleasure of the President, Josh?"

"I can't serve if I can't see, sir. You know that. I can't read a briefing paper. I can't look a congressman in the eye and tell him to go screw himself. I can't even walk across my own apartment without falling over something—"

"Josh—"

"I can't do it, sir. I want to do it, I'm incredibly honored that you want me to do it, but I can't. I'm washed up. And I'm clogging up the news cycle for you, and I'll go on doing it as long as I'm still on staff. You don't need C.J. spending half her time fielding questions about when you're going to replace me or when I'm going to kick it. I can't serve you any more. You've got to let me go, sir."

"Josh, do you remember your Milton?"

"Sir?"

"He was an interesting man, John Milton. A politician; a passionate politician. A reformer."

"This is the poet, right, sir? The 'Paradise Lost' guy?"

"This is the poet, right, Josh. You had a good education; you know what I'm talking about. 'They also serve who only stand and wait,' Josh."

"Sir—"

"'They also serve who only stand and wait.' Source, Josh?"

"One of the sonnets, right, sir?"

"That's right. Which one?"

"The one about going blind, right, sir?"

"That's right, Josh. He wrestled with all the same questions you have to face right now. 'Does God exact day-labour, light denied?' But he found his way to serve, and so will you. In the meantime, I'm announcing that you've offered your resignation, and I have refused it. That should get the press off you for a bit. I take it you heard 'Capitol Beat' yesterday. C.J.'s already been on the phone to their producers, taking a piece off their backs."

"It doesn't matter, sir."

"It does matter, Josh. Don't listen to that crap. You're going to get better and you're going to come back here when you do."

"I can't promise that, sir."

"I know, Josh. But I can."

"That's called hubris, sir. Or mendacity. Or worse."

"It's called faith, Josh."

oooooo


	6. Chapter 6

A.N.: This is the chapter with the rape. Please read advisedly.

Part 6—

"Mr. Lyman? Are you there, Mr. Lyman? It's Georgie, sir."

"Hang on, Georgie. I've got to get to the door without falling over something. Here, come on in, man. Is everything all right?"

"As right as it can be, sir, with you like this."

"Yeah, well, that's one thing I won't expect you to try to fix."

"I'm worried about you, Mr. Lyman, sir."

"I wish you'd call me Josh, Georgie."

"Yes, sir. I know, sir."

"Josh, Georgie. Just do it; it's not that hard to say."

"Yes, sir. It's too quiet up here, sir. I know my hearing isn't what it was, but usually when you're home you've got the news on, sir, and I can hear that."

"I'm sorry, Georgie. I didn't know you could hear it. I didn't mean to bother you."

"It doesn't bother me, sir. It's just quiet, in the background, and it lets me know you're there."

"So you can get into trouble when I'm not there, right?"

"That's right, sir. You have no idea of the trouble I get into when you're not here. All kinds of mischief I can get up to around this place, let me tell you. But I haven't been hearing a peep from up here for the last couple of weeks, sir."

"Sorry, Georgie. You'll just have to keep out of trouble, I guess."

"Yes, sir. I'll keep it in mind, sir. But I know you can't read anymore, Mr. Lyman. You shouldn't be sitting up here by yourself all quiet in the dark, sir. It's not healthy."

"I'm fine, Georgie."

"I don't know, sir. I can see why you might not fancy the t.v. much these days, and most of what's on the radio is trash, but I've brought you something here I thought you might like, sir."

"What's that, Georgie? You don't have to bring me anything."

"Well, sir, it's my old phonograph."

"What? Georgie—"

"Record player, I guess you'd call it, sir. I know you don't have one any more; just that CD thing, that plays those little shiny silver things. And you don't have any decent music on those."

"That's incredibly kind of you, Georgie, but you can't do without your turntable. You listen to it all the time."

"I'll be just fine, sir. It won't be forever; just till you're up and about again, Mr. Lyman, sir."

"I couldn't possibly take it from you, Georgie. And I don't have any records, anyway; I got rid of all mine years ago."

"I know that sir, so I've brought you some of mine."

"Georgie—"

"We've had some real good talks over these, Mr. Lyman. I know you don't want me up here all the time every day, making you talk when you don't feel like it, getting in your way. But it would do me good to think you had them up here to listen to, so you weren't so quiet, by yourself here."

"Georgie, I—"

"I've got it all set up now, Mr. Lyman, sir. You're not going to make me undo all these wires now, are you? I've hooked it up to your receiver, there, and your speakers. You can still use your CD thing, if you want it."

"Georgie, I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say nothing, Mr. Lyman. You've been a real good friend to me. Come over here now, and I'll show you how to work it. It's right here, third shelf up, and the on switch is in this corner. The arm'll go across by itself; you don't need to touch it. Oh, and I marked the covers for the LP's with bits of masking tape, sticking off the edge here. Give me your hand. See? One tab for JSB—can't do without him. Two for old Beethoven; he's a good friend. Three for Chopin. There's nothing like Chopin when you really need to let it out. Four . . . ."

oooooo

"Where did this come from?"

"It's Georgie's. He brought it up this afternoon."

"What on earth for? You have a CD player."

"He seemed to think I might like a different type of music to listen to. He's seen my CD collection, and doesn't approve."

"He brought you these records? Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert . . .?"

"Yeah. I feel awful; I don't know what he'll do without them."

"Or what you'll do with them. You don't even like this kind of music."

"Yeah."

"What a sweet, pointless thing to do."

"Yeah."

"Poor Georgie."

"Yeah."

oooooo

Josh woke up, shaking and sweating. In his dreams he could see: light, too much light: flames leaping up, reflected everywhere, and the red and blue lights flashing and spinning, round and round. He could hear, too: screams, high-pitched, shrill, like a girl's voice screaming, or a young boy's. Or both. Sirens. Music: beautiful, incessant music; shouldn't someone have turned the music off? It was incongruous, playing away through the sirens and the sound of the flames. Sirens. Lights. Flames. Music. And the screaming. And the pain: someone was hurting, someone was dying. Him? Her? He was never sure.

He crawled out of bed. He must not have cried out; Donna was still sleeping, her breathing light, steady. He stood for a minute, listening to it, trying to quiet his own breathing to the same steady pace. Then he felt his way to the bathroom, sat on the toilet, dropped his head in his hands. It was very quiet there; Georgie must be missing his record player. He thought about how he'd lain on the floor just the night before, listening to Georgie's music. Chopin, and Schubert. He remembered his mother's voice on the telephone: It's time, Josh. You can't run away from it forever. It's time, Josh. It's time. It's time. It's time.

oooooo

"So tell me something else about you I don't know."

Donna sighed. They'd been doing this for over a week now, and she was getting fed up with it. She could hardly complain—it had been her idea in the first place—but she'd never meant to create such a one-sided debriefing session.

Josh was trying, she knew that. She'd said she wanted to talk; he was making an effort to talk. Or, at least, to get her to talk. And she liked talking. She liked talking about herself, her childhood, her family, her memories of school, the things she'd done once and hadn't had time to do in years. But she'd never intended this to be all about her. She wanted to learn new things about Josh, but, except for that delicious tidbit about his first-grade teacher, she hadn't been able to get him to say much she didn't already know. He'd answer direct questions—"Who was your second grade teacher?" "Miss Hamilton"—but he wouldn't volunteer any details. He actually seemed uncomfortable when he was on the receiving end of the questions, and would flip them back at her as quickly as possible. It was really starting to get to her.

It wasn't like she didn't know a lot about him already. She knew hundreds of things. She knew he'd always liked basketball and baseball. She knew he'd always been a Mets fan. She knew he'd gotten good grades in school. She knew he'd never gone to prison, or been busted for drugs. There wasn't anything in his past to be ashamed of, so why did he seem so tense when she was asking about his favorite hobbies when he was in grade school, for goodness' sake? College, no problem; she could get him to talk about that ad nauseum, if she wanted to, but she didn't want to; she already knew all about his roommate Chris, and what it had been like working on "The Crimson," and how he'd met Danny Concannon, and how excited he'd been about winning a Fulbright. High school he was pretty open about, too; she knew the names of the girls he'd dated, the teachers he'd liked and the ones he hadn't, how much fun he'd had on the softball team, once he'd realized he was never going to play the real thing and join the Mets. But again, she already knew all that. She wanted him to tell her things she didn't know. But when she tried to probe further back, into his pre-high-school days, he clammed up as if she were asking him to reveal state secrets. It's not as if I'm trying to get him to tell me how his sister died, she thought, a little crossly. I just asked if he ever did band.

And it was hard to come up with answers to questions as open-ended as, "Tell me something I don't know about you." It was making her annoyed. Why couldn't he take the trouble to ask a real question? She suspected that he wasn't taking this very seriously, which she knew shouldn't surprise her—he's a guy, Donna, she thought; what do you expect?—but somehow did. She'd really thought he cared more than that, even if he couldn't bring himself to say so in the way she wanted him to. He could put all that effort and imagination into having sex with her, but he couldn't think of a decent question to ask her about her life, and he wouldn't give her a decent answer to anything she asked him about his. Maybe her body really was the only thing he cared about. Maybe he really did find everything else about her boring. Maybe there was a good reason he wouldn't say, "I love you."

It had been a long day, in a long week—in several long weeks. She was tired, she was hungry, and she was getting her period. Okay, she thought suddenly, I'll TELL him something he doesn't know about me. And before she could think better of it, she said,

"I'll bet you don't know that I was at Chicago."

"When were you in Chicago?"

"At Chicago. The University of Chicago. I started college there."

"The University of Chicago? Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously. Do you think I make things up to tell you?"

"That's a really good school."

"Yes, it is. Why are you surprised? I told you I was valedictorian of my high school."

"I'm not—I just—Well, okay, I'm surprised. I hired you, remember? I've seen your transcripts. I'm sure I'd have noticed one from Chicago."

"I didn't give you a transcript from there. I never got one."

"Why not?"

There was a pause. When she answered, Donna sounded more hesitant.

"I only went for a semester. I left before finals, actually, so I never got my grades. I did fine on all my midterms, though."

"Why did you ever leave?" This time the pause was longer. Donna was wondering what she had been thinking of, starting this, and how she could get out of it. Josh could feel her trembling against him, which upset him.

"Why won't you tell me? Wait, I know. It was a guy, wasn't it? God, Donna—what was this one, your highschool boyfriend? Who couldn't cope with his girl going away and getting a better education than he was, so you went back to hold his hand? What is it with you, Donna? Don't you ever learn? First that guy, then your freeriding med student at Wisconsin. You're always giving up your life for some son-of-a-bitch stupid jerk who doesn't do anything for you in return." Like me, he was thinking to himself. Like me.

Donna sat up suddenly and jerked herself out of his arms.

"Damn it, Josh, do you have to be so—so patronizing? I hate it when you do that. You're always sneering at me, looking down at me because of the guys I've dated and the mess I made of my education."

"I'm not sneering at you, Donna! I've never sneered at you. I just hate—"

She could hear the distress in his voice, and knew she was being unfair, but she couldn't stop herself. She interrupted, cutting him off:

"You just hate that I'll hand myself over to any idiot, as long as he'll pay me a compliment or two; that's it, isn't it Josh? You think I sell myself cheap."

"No, Donna, no, I didn't mean—"

"It wasn't like that, Josh! It wasn't like that at all."

Her voice was shaking, with anger and something else.

"I was seventeen, I was a virgin, for crying out loud. I didn't drop out to go home to my highschool boyfriend. I went to a party at a frat house; I went with my roommate. There was a guy there who knew her a little; she had a crush on him—he was a big goodlooking jock, he was on the hockey team. He started hitting on me as soon as we walked in the door. I talked to him for a bit, but then I realized how drunk he was, and how pissed it was making Sherry that he was talking to me instead of her, and I tried to get away from him, but he wouldn't leave me alone. I should have gone home, I realize that, but Sherry didn't want to leave and I didn't know anyone else and I was too scared to walk across the campus by myself, at night, alone.

"So I stayed and he kept dropping his hands all over me and trying to kiss me; he stank of booze, it was gross, and he had his hand up my dress and I couldn't get him off me. So I stopped trying to be nice about it and I told him to get lost. I think I said I wouldn't like him even if he was sober, but he was drunk and gross and I wanted him to get his disgusting hands off me. A bunch of his friends from the team were standing around, and they heard me and started to laugh.

"So he said I was a frigid bitch and he'd teach me how to loosen up, and he shoved me down on this couch and pushed my dress up and started pulling my pantyhose off. I screamed at him to stop but he didn't pay any attention, and the music was really loud and everyone else was really drunk, and he was big and strong and I couldn't get him off me. Somebody had thrown up all over the couch earlier and someone else had tossed the cushions out of the window; I was on the springs, they dug into my back, I had the marks for weeks. And my head was in a puddle of vomit that had dripped down between the cushions, it was all over my hair, it stank.

"And there was this six-foot-four, two-hundred-forty-pound guy I didn't even like pushing himself into me, and he stank, and it hurt like hell, and when it was all over and he finally rolled off me, I could hardly stand up. I could hardly walk. My dress was torn, my stockings were in shreds, and I had to pull my bra down and get my hose off and find my shoes and get out of there, with everyone looking. I could hear his friends laughing—some of them had been laughing and cheering while he was doing it—and Dave telling someone I'd begged him for it but I wasn't much good as a lay, and I was too scared and too humiliated to say anything; I just wanted to get out of there and get home. I had to walk across the campus like that, with my dress torn, trying to hold it together in front, and you know the funny thing? Nobody tried to attack me at all. I could have left that party any time, but I thought I shouldn't, so I stayed and I got raped anyway.

"And when I got home I got in the shower and stayed there for two hours, trying to get the smell of him off me, the feel of him out from between my legs and the puke out of my hair. It turned out I did that wrong, too; you're not supposed to take a bath or a shower after; you're supposed to go straight to the police so they can scrape you out and get all the evidence they need in case you decide to go to court about it. I knew all about that—they'd had workshops in the dorms about it, and everything—but I never even thought of it; all I thought about was wanting to get clean. And warm; I was black and blue, I hurt, and I couldn't stop shivering.

"And then I went to my room and locked the door and pushed the dresser in front of it and got into bed and pulled the covers over my head and stayed there for two days. My roommate came home the next morning, but she couldn't get in; she was pretty pissed at me, but I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed to move the dresser. I let her in the next day, and I tried to tell her what happened, but do you know what she said? 'God, Donna, don't do that Ice Queen act with me; why don't you just admit you enjoyed it?' And then she said, 'You're such a bitch. You knew I liked him; why couldn't you just leave him alone?' I found out later she told everyone I'd been a total slut all semester. She wanted me to move out, and I couldn't face the idea of seeing anyone who'd seen me there, like that, or who'd heard about it, so I put all my things in my car and drove home. And that's the story of Donna Moss and why she never finished her first semester at the University of Chicago."

Somewhere in the middle of what she was saying Josh had pushed himself across the sofa and pulled her into his arms. They were as tight around her as it was possible to be now; he was actually hurting her, but there was something so comforting about the feel of him around her that she didn't want him to loosen his grip. His head was buried in her hair; his breath was warm on her cheek, and something else, too, warm and wet. It could have been sweat. His breathing was ragged, and she could feel his heart pounding fast against her back. Her own heart was pounding too. He held her that way for a long time, rocking slightly, back and forth, before he said anything. When he did, his voice sounded strangled.

"What was his name?"

"What?"

"His name?"

"Dave."

"What else?"

"I don't know, I don't remember."

"What was his major, then?"

"What?"

"What was his major? What was he studying?"

"I don't remember. I don't know if I ever knew."

"You said he was on the hockey team. What position did he play?"

"I have no idea. Why on earth are you asking? Why do you care?"

"So I can find him. So I can find the fucking bastard and kill him. So I can rip him from head to toe, and tear his fucking balls off."

Donna laughed, an hysterical giggle. She was so keyed up she couldn't help it.

"Oh, Josh."

"What do you mean, 'Oh, Josh'?" His voice was still angry.

"I mean, I just—why do you guys all have to sound alike?"

"Alike?" Josh exploded. "You think I'm like HIM? God damn it, Donna, I may be like Freeride, I may be like some drop-out highschool boyfriend, holding you back, but I am NOT like him. For seven god-damned years I held myself back from you, because I couldn't tell whether you wanted me or not, because you worked with me and if you didn't want me it would make your life hell, and I wasn't going to do that to you, even though I know I did enough else. Seven god-damned, fucking years. I didn't get to touch you when I was fit and healthy. I didn't get to kiss you when I still had hair. Do you have any idea how much I used to want to feel your hands in my hair while I kissed you? I didn't get to make love to you when I was strong enough to really do something with it, when my chest wasn't covered with scars and I had hair on it, when I didn't look like a freak. I wanted to wake up and see you in the morning for the rest of my life, but I only got a month of that. I wanted to take care of you, not stick you with taking care of a useless, sightless wreck like me. But I never got to do that, and I'm probably never going to. Because I waited, because I didn't know what you wanted and I didn't want to force myself on you. And you think I'm like some fucking asshole rapist who should be rotting his fucking life out in jail?"

"Josh. Josh. Stop. I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. You know I didn't mean that."

"You're sorry? What the hell do you have to be sorry about, Donna? It's me who's sorry. I'm sorry there are guys like that. I'm sorry you met one of them. I'm sorry I wasn't there to pull him off you and kill him in front of you, because I would have, I really would. I'm sorry you ever had to go through that. I'm sorry you ever met Freeride, and I'm sorry you ever got tied up with me. I'm sorry about every god-damned thing I've ever said that's upset you, every time I ever gave you a hard time about a date, anything, everything. You're amazing, that you ever wanted to go on a date again, that you ever let a man touch you again. You blow me away. But you know you always did. I've always thought you were amazing. I've never sneered at you, Donna, never. Never. I was jealous and I hated that you went out with anyone except me. You know that. You have to know that."

He was beside himself. Donna didn't know where to start. She'd never intended to tell him that story, and telling it had upset her more than she'd realized it would, but that paled in comparison for her with what Josh was telling her about himself right now.

"Josh. Stop. Listen to me. You've got to listen to me. I'm sorry I told you that; I didn't mean to. I don't want you to be upset about it. It's not a big deal anymore, Josh, not really. It happened, it was hard—it was really hard—but it was a long time ago, it's over. I wish it hadn't happened, and I wish I'd done things differently—I wish I'd gone to the police, taken him to court—but I couldn't then, I really couldn't, and I'm okay with that now. I did the best I could, and I think I did okay. I didn't let it destroy me; I built my life back again.

"Yes, it affected me. Yes, it's why I dropped out of Chicago, and it's probably why I dropped out of Wisconsin, too, when Alan asked me to. I really wish I hadn't; I hate that about myself. I wish I'd stuck to my guns and got my degree. I'm always conscious of not having it; it's so hard, sometimes, working with the smartest, best-educated people in the country, and not having at least that achievement behind me. I wish I hadn't let Dave take that away from me.

"But I didn't let him take everything. You're right; it wasn't easy for me to date for a long time afterwards, but I really wanted to, so I did it. That was what mattered most to me then, what I wanted most not to lose to him. I wanted a normal relationship, and I had one with Alan for a while. He wasn't a jerk, Josh; he was good for me then in a lot of ways. I did love him, and I think he loved me, even though we weren't very wise about my dropping out of school to work and pay his way. He wasn't just using me, or he didn't mean to. We were both just young—too young and too different; it wasn't something that was going to last. It shouldn't have lasted as long as it did, but I didn't have the confidence to end it any sooner.

"And I don't know if I would have had the confidence to leave him the second time, after I'd gone back to him, if it hadn't been for you, Josh. You gave me that confidence, when you hired me. You took a big chance, but you let me see that I could do something, be something on my own; that I didn't have to be with Alan all my life. You are not like Alan, Josh; I don't even know why you'd say that. And you're certainly not like Dave. And I'm sorry, I'm so sorry that you feel like you missed out because we didn't get together years ago. I wish we had, too. But Josh, I'm just so grateful every day that we did get together, that we are together now. It really, honestly doesn't matter to me whether you have hair or not, or whether you have the same muscles now that you did years ago, or whether your chest has hair on it, or scars, or not.

"I do wish you could still see. If I could let you see by giving you one of my own eyes, I would. I really, really hope it's only temporary and you're going to see again. But Josh, if you never do, it wouldn't make any difference to me. You're not useless. You're not a wreck. And you're not a burden, Josh. You're still in shock; it's been less than a month since you stopped being able to see. I was a mess a month after Dave raped me, and losing your virginity, even that way, isn't as terrible as losing your sight. Of course that's hard for you to deal with. But you're going to deal with it; you're going to find useful things to do. Things you can be proud of. Things I can be proud of. Because I've always been very proud of knowing you, Josh, and I still am, and I know I always will be."

Josh dropped his head and blinked, fast, struggling not to let his eyes betray him. He really didn't want to break down right now. It was a minute before he found his voice, and when he did, it was deep and husky.

"Thanks." That was all he could say. He wrestled for another minute, trying to stay in control.

Donna saved him.

"Come on," she said, running her hands up under his shirt. "I'm sick of all this talking. I want to have SEX."

She pushed him back down against the couch and rolled on top of him, and suddenly they were both laughing, hysterically, as if having sex instead of talking was the funniest idea either of them had ever heard. Though, when they'd had it, there wasn't much question that both of them had found it entirely satisfactory.

oooooo


	7. Chapter 7

Josh didn't head for the couch when Donna left the next morning. He had phone calls to make. He'd lain awake much of the night, thinking about what he could do, and he'd come up with a plan that—surprisingly—still seemed worth doing after breakfast. He fiddled with the phone. The first call was easy, 411. The second took a couple of tries; it was to the long-distance directory for the area code he'd requested from 411. For the third he just hit "star" to connect, even though Chris would have told him that was cheating. After that he got stuck for a while in electronic menus, until he decided to pretend he was calling from a rotary phone, and stop hitting numbers. He was surprised by how quickly he reached a receptionist after that. She put him through to the office he asked for, where it took him a little while to convince the woman he was talking to that he probably was who he said he was. She softened, however, when he promised to take care of all future correspondence with her in writing, on White House letterhead, and she outlined for him the procedures that he wanted to know about. He repeated them several times, to be sure he had them straight; he was glad he'd always had a good memory, since he couldn't take notes. Then he thanked her, promised her again that she'd be hearing from the White House soon, and rang off.

The next call was harder. He needed someone who could take care of all this writing on White House letterhead he'd just been promising, as well as some other things. He hated asking for favors from his friends, and this was a big favor, something that was going to take quite a lot of time. After dithering around for a while, stalling, he decided to start with C.J. This time he remembered to use his speed-dial.

"Hey, Claudia Jean."

"JOSH?"

"You got him. Do you have a minute?"

"For you, mi amor, only for you. Hang on a sec—" He could hear her talking to Carol. "There. I've bought a few minutes. How are you, Josh?"

"I'm okay, C.J. Look, I was wondering—I hate to ask this, it's kind of an imposition, but—I was wondering if you could do something for me."

"Anything, Josh."

"It's going to take some time. I could kick myself for not having thought of this ages ago, when I could have done it myself, but I thought, if I asked Toby too, maybe even Will, it might not be so bad."

"We'll do it, Josh, whatever it is. Don't worry about that. What is it?"

"Well . . ."

oooooo

Donna climbed the back steps, opened the door, and stopped in surprise. Drifting down the hallway from the front of the house, she heard music. Not Simon and Garfunkel or CSNY, not the Beatles or the Stones. Not Springsteen. Not the Doobie Brothers. Not, in short, any of the predictable hits of his youth that Josh used to listen to, back in the days when he would, occasionally, put a CD in his player—something he hadn't done in quite a while. She stood still, listening, trying to place the piece. She was better with orchestral music, or solos for the flute, but she thought this must be Beethoven, probably one of the sonatas. She thought Georgie must have come up to visit again; Josh would have put on one of his records to be kind. She couldn't imagine him listening to classical music for any other reason.

She dropped her purse and tote bag on the floor, hung up her coat, and made her way to the living room. She walked in smiling, expecting to see Georgie and Josh sitting together talking to each other, the way they used to down in Georgie's basement, while the music played in the background. But Georgie wasn't there. It was earlier than usual—Frank and Geoff had both had meetings on the Hill, and had told her she could go home—so the room was still quite light. At first she thought it was empty. Then she realized that Josh was in his usual place, lying on the couch. His eyes were closed; his forehead was wrinkled a bit, as though he were concentrating. Behind him the lights on the stereo were glinting, and a black vinyl disk was turning quickly under the steel arm and the tiny diamond needle of the record player, pouring forth notes written two hundred years before into the room.

oooooo

Josh woke up shaking again. The sirens, the screams, the lights, the music. He was having the dreams every night now, the way he used to, after the shooting.

Only this time, it was different. This time he knew what was happening. He knew why it was happening. And he knew what he had to do about it.

Not just the things they had taught him in therapy. Not just avoiding the trigger. Not just deep breathing, or the repetition of calming phrases, or forcing himself to choose an object he knew was real and focus on it—which would be impossible now, anyway. He knew he had to go beyond that. Had to stop running away. Had to make himself whole.

He knew what that meant; knew what he had to do. The only trouble was, the idea scared him so much, he didn't know if he could do it.

oooooo

Donna didn't know whether to be worried about Josh or not. The changes in him over the last few days were dramatic, but in many ways she thought they were for the better. She didn't come home to find him sitting in silence any more; the music was always on, Georgie's music—the classical music that Josh had scoffed at or ignored for as long as she'd known him. He never looked as if he were enjoying it, exactly—never looked happy or relaxed, when she caught sight of him before he'd realize she was in the room. In fact he looked almost worried. Concentrated—as if all his energy, all his attention was focused on the sound that was filling his ears—but tense, too, as if he was aware of some danger that was invisible to her, and had to stay alert in case it suddenly broke in on them. Sometimes he would be lying on the couch, as he had been that afternoon when she'd first found him listening to the music, but more often he would be pacing around it. He knew his way around the apartment better now, and didn't stumble as often. The pacing was so like the old Josh it comforted Donna, but she wondered where all the nervous energy had suddenly come from, what had set it off. It was there at night, too; his sleep was more restless even than usual, and she was pretty sure he was having nightmares again. She knew he had had a bad time at night when he'd first developed PTSD, and she wondered if it might be coming back again. Music had been the trigger before. Only this time Josh didn't seem to want to avoid the music; he sought it out.

oooooo

The music was playing on the stereo in the living room. Bach, one of the violin concertos; she loved that piece. "Listen," she said to him. "Listen to that bit, right there." "I'm hungry," he said. "Let's get something to eat."

From a long ways away, he watched himself watch her get out the pan, the oil, the popcorn. 1972—nobody had an electric popper or a microwave then. You made it in a heavy skillet. It was easy: you poured in a little oil, dumped in some popcorn kernels, put on the lid, and took turns shaking it over the burner until it was all popped. Then you poured it into a bowl, stirred in the butter and salt, and took it back to the living room, where the music was. You'd lie on the floor together, the bowl between you, as close to the speakers as you could get. You'd let the music fill you up, carry you away. Carry both of you away. Just for a minute or two; just till the end of this piece.

Someone did turn the stove off, didn't they? Someone did move the pan off the burner?

oooooo

It had been a rough night. The sirens had been louder, the flames had leapt higher, the screams had been more shrill. The music had poured out into the night, more beautifully and more incessantly than ever. Josh had woken Donna up, not once, but three times, thrashing around.

It's time, Josh. It's time. It's time. It's time.

oooooo

Josh sat on the edge of the couch, flexing his fingers nervously. He'd been up and down and around the room twenty or thirty times that morning. He'd put a record on the turntable, listened to it for a minute, switched it off. And on again. And off. And on. And off. It was off now; the room was silent, except for the sound of his knuckles cracking. He shouldn't do that. He did it anyway.

Suddenly he pushed himself to his feet and made his way slowly across the room until he bumped up against the piano, stretched out under the window. He leaned on it, breathing jaggedly. It felt solid, unmovable, infinitely reassuring. He stood with his hands pressed against it for several minutes, anchoring himself to its strong bulk, trying to slow his breathing down. The wood was cool and mostly smooth, though when he started to run his fingers over it he could feel the little dings and dents in the finish. He didn't need his eyes to know what it looked like; it had never been one of those glossy, ebonized instruments, but an old piece in warm, mellow wood, a little battered from three generations of use. It had been his mother's, and her mother's before her.

He opened his hands flat and ran them along the instrument's smooth, curving side; a shiver went down his spine and into his gut—it was almost sexual. He took a step or two, his hands following the curve, until his fingers found the keyboard. His hand hit a key accidentally, and it pinged: the very highest B on the board. He stepped directly in front of the keyboard and touched it, tentatively. A note quavered: D above high C. He touched a different key, more firmly this time, listening appreciatively to the full, rounded sound as it rang out into the darkness. The A flat below high C. His thumb found middle C, and he let his fingers run up the scale. Then he tried his left hand, picking out notes one at a time: the F two octaves below middle C. The B flat one octave below. The G below. The A. The B. Then the scale, moving down. The piano was just a little flat—not much, not as bad as you'd expect considering its long journey and the difference in climate between West Palm Beach and Washington.

He had always been able to tell. Perfect pitch, they called it. Someone must have taught him the names of the notes once—he couldn't remember—but they hadn't had to teach him how to tell the G from the A or the octave either note was in. His ability to name the notes and tell whether an instrument was sharp or flat or perfectly in tune had driven Joanie crazy—for all her passion for music she couldn't do it herself—but she'd been proud of him, too. He remembered how she used to show him off to her friends, especially the musical ones: "Turn around and close your eyes, Josh. What note am I playing? And this one? And this?" And the murmur of surprise from the other girls, astonishment sometimes, once in a while outright disbelief.

Josh pulled out the bench and sat down. With both hands on the keyboard and starting a couple of octaves below middle C, he ran through the scales, one by one. C, C sharp/D flat, D, D sharp/E flat, F, F sharp/G flat, G, G sharp/A flat, A, A sharp/B flat, B, C again. Up and down, several octaves at a time, his touch growing surer with each repetition, the sound growing stronger and fuller. He started to shape the scales: crescendo, diminuendo. Then he tried some arpeggios. Then some chord progressions. Then the scales again.

After a while, wondering if he was crazy even to try, he stretched his hands out over the keys and stretched his mind back over thirty years, summoning the notes. The right hand first: F below high C, D flat, A flat. B flat, C. D flat, E flat, F, G flat. F again, twice. E flat, D flat. Dotted eighth notes, half note, quarter, dotted quarter, quarter, dotted eighth again, half, quarter, dotted quarter, eighth, quarter. And then the grace note and the lilting, twisting little run. The haunting melody filled the room: Chopin. He thought how odd it was that a piece in a major key could make you want to cry. He added the left hand, the quiet, insistent rhythm that reminded so many people of rain falling. Prelude number 15 in D flat major, the "Raindrop." His again, after all these years.

He played it through, amazed that he still remembered the shifts of key and variations on the theme. He made plenty of mistakes, but his fingers always found the right notes again, which astonished him. When he was finished he played it again, and again. It wasn't a particularly difficult piece. He'd been playing harder than that, a lot harder, when he'd quit. He wondered what else his fingers remembered, and he tried something, a Bach invention, and was surprised again by how readily it came back. Then a piece by Schumann, then a movement of a sonata by Beethoven. Then Bach again—one of the preludes, this time—some Mozart, and more Chopin.

He couldn't believe he could still do it. It occurred to him that he was playing better than he'd played before—not technically, of course, but musically—and he thought that was a strange thing. Not to touch an instrument in thirty-two years, to try your best not to think about it for thirty-two years, and then to sit back down and play with more feeling and understanding and conviction than you'd been able to before at even your best competition—hell, even your best private moment—seemed unreasonable. It defied everything teachers and parents had ever said about the importance of daily practice. Josh grinned to himself, just a little; he wished Mrs. Sarkowsky was there now, to hear all her pet dictums confounded.

Of course, she'd probably just remind him, tartly, that he was forty-four, and ask him how much better he would have been playing if he'd kept working at it. The thought sobered him. He would never be concert quality now, but there'd been a time when he'd thought he might be, someday. Other people had thought so, too: his teachers, his parents. Joanie. That had been the plan: she was going to conduct the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, and he was going to play concertos under her baton. Their plan, her plan—her second plan, anyway; there'd been a time, he could just remember, when she'd been the one who was going to be playing the concertos while Leonard Bernstein conducted. Josh remembered the way she'd looked at him the first time he'd won a state competition: with so much pride it was shining out of her smile, her eyes, but with a touch of something else, too. The next day she'd told their parents she wanted to learn violin, and soon she'd started to talk about becoming a conductor instead of a pianist after all. She'd started violin lessons and had picked the difficult instrument up so easily that no one had thought much about the sudden shift in her priorities, but looking back now Josh wondered what his performance had done to her sense of her own. Something else to feel guilty about, as if he needed any more of that. He started to play the Chopin again, letting the ache inside him leach out into his fingers and into the notes that filled the room.

Donna heard the music as she was opening the door. Chopin, she thought, wondering if it was the radio, maybe a local concert; it sounded good, but not familiar—slower than on the record Josh had played so much lately, and a little rougher, the rhythms not quite so smooth and polished, the occasional stumble over the notes. She liked it; she thought the slower pace suited the music, the absence of show-off virtuosity letting all the feeling come through, aching, longing, tender. The bit of roughness reminded her of a man's voice gone husky with emotion—Josh's voice. She suddenly felt tears coming to her eyes, and brushed them hastily away. Damn it, she must be tired. The records didn't usually affect her like that.

She slipped her shoes off—it was raining outside, they were wet—and moved quietly down the hall and into the living room to turn on one of the lamps beside the couch where Josh would be lying, too caught up in the music to have noticed her coming in. But the couch was empty. She straightened in surprise, noticing as she did that the radio and the turntable on the bookcase were dark and still. Slowly, almost disbelievingly, she turned towards the window and froze, holding her breath, her heart in her throat.

He was sitting at the piano, the seat pushed back, his hands moving over the keys and his long legs stretched out to the pedals. His head was bowed, the expression on his face one she had never seen there before. Concentration and relaxation and sadness and happiness and a kind of deep, deep peacefulness all mixed together, looking completely natural, completely right. She wondered suddenly if she had ever really seen Josh before at all. He obviously hadn't heard her, didn't know she was there. She sank onto the couch and tried to sit completely still as he continued to play, utterly unaware of having an audience. He finished the Chopin and moved on to something by Bach. More Bach, then Mozart, then Beethoven, then something by Brahms. All the composers he'd been listening to lately; not the most difficult pieces in the repertory—she recognized that—but not the easiest, either. What was the story behind this, she wondered. How was it possible that Josh could be this good a pianist, and she knew nothing about it? She was sure he couldn't have played in the past six or seven years, not since she'd known him, not until the piano had arrived, anyway. He'd never even seemed interested in music until recently—and, of course, after the shooting, he'd actively avoided it for a long time. She had wondered, when his mother had sent the piano, but he'd been quite convincing in his denials. What on earth, she wondered. What on earth?

She wiped her eyes again, and breathed in sharply. Maybe the room was a little dusty, or maybe it was just the emotional state the music had put her in, but something caught in her throat and made her cough; she tried to suppress it, but couldn't. The playing stopped instantly. "Donna?" Josh asked, softly. "How long have you been there? Are you all right?" She got up and walked over to the piano, slid onto the bench beside him, and wrapped her arm around his waist.

"I'm fine. A while. You didn't hear me come in. Why did you say you didn't play, Josh?"

"I wasn't lying. I don't. I mean, I didn't—I thought I didn't. I haven't played in years."

"How long?"

"I don't know—thirty, thirty-two years, I guess. Since I was a kid."

"You haven't played in that long and you can play like that now?"

"Yeah, I was surprised. It's not that great—there are a lot of mistakes—but I didn't think I'd even remember the notes."

"I can't believe you knew those pieces thirty-two years ago. When you were what, twelve? What were you, some kind of child prodigy or something?"

There was a pause. When he answered, Josh sounded awkward. "Something like that. It doesn't mean what you think it means—I wasn't ready to go on tour or anything—but yeah, they used that word sometimes."

"Why on earth did you ever stop? If I could do that I'd never want to do anything else. I didn't know you even cared about music until a few weeks ago."

When he didn't answer, she asked him again: "Why, Josh?"

This time he tightened his arm around her waist and pulled her closer, and she realized he was shaking. She looked up into his face and saw the tears running down his cheeks: the first time she had ever seen him cry.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, wiping at his face with his free hand. "Oh God. I'm sorry. I didn't think I—oh God, I'm sorry."

She was crying a little too as she pulled his head down onto her shoulder and held him tight against her. "It's okay, sweetheart; it's okay. Go ahead. It's okay."

He shuddered. His shoulders heaved. "God, I love you," he groaned. And Donna wondered why the whole winter night outside didn't light up, and the piano start to play by itself.

oooooo


	8. Chapter 8

Part 8—

When he had gotten control of himself—much too soon, Donna thought—and they had moved to the sofa, and she was sitting on his lap with his arms around her and his face in her hair, Donna risked the subject again. This time she realized she knew the answer, but she didn't know the details, and she thought he'd be better off talking about it than not. Thirty-two years was much too long to keep something like that bottled up inside you, and she was pretty sure, from his reaction, that he'd never talked about it to anyone before, in spite of all the therapists he'd seen.

"It was because of Joanie, wasn't it, Josh?"

He nodded, his head brushing against her hair; she could feel another shudder pass through his arms and chest, and his breathing hitched. A couple of minutes passed before he could say anything.

"It was just so tied up with her. It had always been her thing; she was always going to be a musician. And it was our thing, together. We used to take turns practicing; I'd sit and listen to her, and she'd listen to me. She'd wanted to be a famous pianist. Then when I got good she changed her mind and decided she was going to be a violinist and a conductor, though she kept up the piano, too. She had this plan—she was going to conduct the New York Philharmonic, and I was going to debut at Carnegie Hall and she would conduct me. She called it The Great Master Plan. I don't suppose either of us would ever have made it that far, but she thought we would. And then . . . I was eleven when she died; she had just turned fifteen. I actually kept on playing for a while after, but then I just couldn't do it any more, and I stopped and told myself I was never going to play again. And I didn't, I really didn't, until this afternoon, when I just—it's so dark, and I get so lonely, and so—so scared, sometimes—and I thought, if I could just touch it again, maybe I could . . . I don't know. I'm sorry." He actually sounded as if he thought he needed to apologize to someone. Donna realized suddenly that it was probably Joanie.

"Josh, what made you decide to stop? I mean, if you kept playing after she died . . ."

He swallowed, hard. It took him a while to answer. "It was something someone said. A teacher, not ours; a judge at a competition I played in."

"What did he say?"

"She. She said—she'd known Joanie, had heard her play not long before— but she didn't know what had happened."

"What did she say, Josh?"

There was a very long pause. Donna waited. When he finally answered, his voice was almost inaudible.

"She said I was going to be better. Than Joanie. That I already was. She said, 'You can beat your sister into the ground, dear.'"

"Oh, Josh. I'm sure she didn't mean—"

"No, of course she didn't mean anything; she didn't know. But I went into the bathroom and threw up. And then I went home and shut the piano and told my parents I wasn't going to play again, and I didn't. I couldn't. I just couldn't."

Later, Donna asked something she'd always wondered about. "Josh, didn't you see anyone after your sister died?"

"What do you mean?" He was thinking seeing as in a date, which didn't make any sense.

"I mean, didn't your parents have you see anyone with some training, get you any help? Your family doctor, the school—usually the first thing they do after a tragedy like that is make sure everyone involved gets counseling, gets help with dealing with their feelings about it."

So they don't dig in and do stupid, self-destructive things like you did, she thought. So they don't give up half of themselves out of some misguided sense of loyalty and guilt. So they don't have nightmares their whole lives. So they don't beat themselves ragged. So their feelings aren't so twisted around they can't let anyone know them too well. So they can tell someone they love that they love them, without whatever fears and demons have been chasing you all your life.

"It was the seventies, Donna, the early seventies. People didn't really do that then. There weren't grief counseling programs on every street corner; trauma was something physical that happened to you, not something inside. Everyone thought seeing a counselor or, God help us, a shrink meant you were weak, or worse. You were supposed to sort things out on your own."

"But I thought Jewish people were more progressive than that. All those Woody Allen movies . . ."

Josh actually laughed. "That's New York. You had to be a New York Jew to be cool about psychotherapy when I was a kid. We lived in Connecticut; we were pretty waspy Jews. I think a couple of people did suggest it to my parents—my mom told me once—but they were afraid they'd give me a mental health record that would ruin my life. They had a point, too; remember what happened to Eagleton, when it came out he'd been treated for depression?"

"Nobody would care now."

"No, not about something like that. But it wasn't now, it was then. My parents did the best for me they could. Their lives had been shot to hell too, remember. It was all any of us could do just to get up in the morning and get through a day."

Donna sat quietly for a while. She'd actually never thought about what the immediate impact of his sister's death must have been on Josh's family; she'd been too busy sorting out its long-term effects on him. She wondered what they had done, in the first days after, the first weeks. How it had changed his father, his mother, the whole dynamics of their family life. How did you go on after something like that? Yet people did. And then, to do it in the context of upper-middle-class suburban seclusion, which allowed you a couple of weeks to have your funeral and mourn, and then expected you to get back in the familiar groove and go on just as before. So you wouldn't disturb anybody else with your feelings. So other families wouldn't have to think too hard about your tragedy and your grief. The wonder wasn't that Josh had ended up as twisted up inside as he had; it was that he wasn't much worse.

They must have been a strong family, she thought, to have ridden it out as well as they had. And he must have been strong—almost frighteningly strong, to be able to leave one talent and passion behind, and find others to drive him forward into such a successful, accomplished life. But she thought she understood a little better the hardness he sometimes showed people, the sarcasm and the mockery that could be almost cruel at times, the pitilessness with which he could go after someone who was getting in his, or the administration's, way. He had had to learn to be hard to do what he'd done, and to do it on his own. Cutting the music out of his life must have been like cutting off his own arm, or leg, but he had had to do it to survive. Or he'd thought he had to. She wondered what he was going to be like, now that he'd let it back in.

oooooo

"Your hair's starting to grow back."

"I know. It itches like hell; it's driving me crazy."

"It's all fuzzy up on top. And here, on your chest, and under your arms—"

"Ouch! Cut it out; that hurts."

"Hurts? You've got to be kidding. Your skin's only a little pink there."

"It's radiation burn, Donna. You're supposed to feel sorry for me; I've been irradiated. It's like having a sunburn under your armpit."

"That's not a burn; it's just a teeny, tiny touch of color."

"It hurts, I tell you."

"You big baby."

"Have you ever had a sunburn under your armpit?"

"Yes, actually, I have."

"You have?"

"I was wearing this bikini, and I wanted to get a tan on my side, so I sunbathed with my arms over my head—"

"With your arms over your head?"

"Well, one arm at a time."

"In a bikini?"

"A very small bikini, Josh. An itsy-bitsy, eeny-weeny—"

"This small? It came down to here?"

"Smaller than that."

"To here?"

"Smal—ooo, what are you doing?"

"Put those arms up over your head. I want to figure out where this bikini went. See, I don't think you could have got sunburned in the same places I am . . ."

oooooo

"Donna?"

"Yes, Josh?"

"Donna—are you wearing something blue?"

"Yes, it's my tank to—Oh, Josh. Oh God, Josh. Can you really—?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I can."

"Oh God, Josh."

"Yeah."

oooooo

"Why is it taking so damn long, C.J.?"

"I don't know, Josh. I keep telling you. Why don't you just go read that briefing paper, and shut up about it for a bit?"

"I've made like a million calls about it."

"I know. Maybe that's why. Maybe they're sitting on it, on purpose, just to pay you back for being such a pain in the ass about it."

"I'm not being a pain in the ass. I'm just asking. I'm just enquiring. I'm just trying to find out why it's taking so damn long."

"And I really don't know. But I can think of possibilities. Maybe someone's sick. Maybe they're on sabbatical. Maybe they have too many classes to want to deal with it. Maybe—"

"Maybe they're all a bunch of incompetent morons who should be fired."

"They're probably tenured."

"That proves it then. They're tenured, they're morons; it's a law, like gravity."

"Honestly, Josh—"

"Haven't you ever noticed? They can be absolute dynamite while they've still got Assistant in front of their title. Then they get tenure, and make Associate, and it starts to decline. By the time they've hit Full, they're morons."

"Is that how it was at Harvard? Or Yale?"

"You bet. All the best teaching was done by graduate students, or new PhD's."

"Yeah, it was like that at Berkeley, too."

"I just wish they'd get on with it. It's been months, for Christ's sake."

"Go read that briefing paper and shut up, mi amor. You've got that thing with McSheffery in half an hour, don't you?"

"God, yes. Is it really 12:30 already? Donna'll kill me."

"Get out of here, then."

"I'm going, I'm going."

"Good. 'Bye."

"But you'll call them again, too?"

"Out of here!"

"You'll call, C.J.?"

"I'll do anything to get you out of here."

"Call, then."

"I'll call."

"I'm gone."

"'Bye."

oooooo

"Your tie's crooked, Josh."

"I need help."

"You're pathetic. You'd think a man your age could tie his own tie straight."

"I can. I just pretend I can't to get you close to me, you know. No, you're not doing it right; you need to be closer. Mmmmm . . ."

"Cut it out, Josh! We're at the office. And I don't want to have to fix my makeup again; we're due in the Rose Garden in fifteen minutes."

"That gives us ten minutes to neck, three for you to fix your makeup, and two to get over to the Rose Garden."

"You're impossible. It takes me at least five minutes to fix my makeup after you've been all over my face. And we're not supposed to be late. Debbie and Margaret seemed to think the world would come to an end if anyone was even a second late."

"You think?"

"Yes, I think. How could you have missed it? I can't imagine why it matters; it's just the assistants' party."

"The Staff Appreciation Tea. In the Rose Garden."

"What's gotten into them this year, anyway? They've never made such a big deal about it before."

"I can't imagine. I really can't imagine."

oooooo

"And so, all of you, I hope you know how very much your work here is appreciated. Without each one of you, and the extraordinary dedication and skill each one of you brings to work every day, none of the legislative accomplishments I've just mentioned could have been accomplished. It's not an exaggeration to say that, without each one of you, there would be no White House. There would be no Presidency. There might be a building—1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, a grand and beautiful building, rich with dignity and history—but it would have no contemporary significance, no meaning in our country or our world today, beyond the aesthetic and the historic. There might be a man living in that building, and he might be called the President of the United States, but he would be nothing but a figurehead, a powerless and empty symbol, who effected no change in our laws and made no difference in our country or our world. For it is only through you and your work, your dedication, and your skill, that I have been able to keep any of the promises I made to this country, when they elected me to this great office and entrusted me with the title I bear. Thank you, each of you, for all you do. I hope you'll keep on doing it—if you all went out on strike, I'd never be able to find another group of people talented enough to fill your shoes, or crazy enough to work the hours you usually do. Especially for the money Congress has deemed fit to pay you.

"In just a minute I'll be setting you free to dig into that wonderful selection of pastries Manuel and his staff have put on that table over there. Yes, Margaret, I saw how longingly you were looking at it while I was talking. But before I do, there's one last piece of business I want to take care of.

"Each of you who works at the assistant level is, in some way, overqualified for the work you do. You all spend part, at least, of your day answering telephones, scheduling appointments, making photocopies, and sometimes forcing your boss to change his—or her—shirt when he or she has been working for forty-eight hours straight and hasn't had time to go home and take a shower. Each of you also does much more than that. You act as a sounding-board for the senior staff member you assist. You research complicated questions. You write reports; you help draft sections of bills or speeches. It's impossible to overstate the value of this part of the work you do, and yet often, in the rush of daily business, it gets overlooked, or seems to.

"I'm glad to say that it's possible to attach a real measure of significance to this work, however. As some of you may know, many of the fine universities in our country have begun to give academic credit for what they call "life experience." Their faculty are willing to accept such work as I've been describing as having equal value with essays and research papers written by a student formally enrolled in a class. If a student has been enrolled in a university, and has accumulated enough credits in the regular way, his or her work in a job like yours can be used to count towards the achievement of an academic degree.

"One of you has recently completed her bachelor's degree in this way. I've asked the president of her university if I might stand in his stead to award her diploma today, and he has graciously agreed. It's apparently very important that I say the right words, so I will now announce that, by the authority invested in me by the faculty and administration of the University of the great state of Wisconsin, I hereby bestow upon Donnatella Moss the degree of bachelor of arts, cum laude. Donna, if you'll just come forward, I can give you this piece of paper that says you are entitled to all the rights and privileges of a baccalaureate. I'm supposed to shake your hand while I do it, but I'm hoping you'll bypass the hand and give me a big hug, instead . . ."

oooooo

"I can't believe it!"

"Calm down, Donna."

"I can't believe it! I can't believe it! I can't believe it!"

"Calm down, Donna. You're squeaking."

"I can't believe you DID that. You actually submitted my notes and reports for life experience credit, so I could get my degree?"

"It was C.J. and Toby who did it, Donna. I think they had quite a bit of help from Carol and Bonnie and Ginger, too. I wasn't able to do much."

"It was your idea, though! Josh—"

"You already had an awful lot of credits. You'd crammed more work into two years than most people do in five."

"How did you do it?"

"Easy—I called the university Registrar."

"And they told you things? They actually divulged my academic record without my permission? They accepted papers without my signature?"

"I charmed them. I made full use of the Lyman charm. Also White House letterhead. I think it was the lure of the letterhead that really did the trick, actually. Your transcripts were here on file anyway, so they didn't have to divulge anything. And I remembered that Margaret's rather good at forging signatures."

"So I got my degree under false pretenses?"

"Only if you refuse to acknowledge the signatures, which might be a little unkind to Margaret. Not to mention the President, who was inordinately pleased to get to award a degree. It seems he's always wanted to."

"He did Zoe's."

"That wasn't enough. It gave him a taste for more."

"Josh?"

"What?"

"What was my major?"

"It says on the diploma; haven't you looked at it yet?"

"About fifty times, but I'm too excited to read anything."

"Political studies. With minors in collecting trivia, talking too fast, philately—OUCH!"

"Josh?"

"Yes, Donna?"

"This is the very nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."

"I didn't do it for you, Donna. Everything that counted, you did yourself."

oooooo

"Congratulations, Donna."

"Oh, thank you, Dr. Bartlet. I still can't quite believe it."

"You earned it, dear. All they did was gather your work together and send it to the right people."

"And forge my signature."

"Shhh! I didn't hear that. I don't want to hear that. Was it Margaret?"

"That's what Josh says."

"I've always suspected her of criminal tendencies. Donna, is there any news about Josh yet?"

"Not yet, Dr. Bartlet. He's going for an exam this week."

"It's been a year, hasn't it?"

"Yes, it has. They say this is an important one to clear; if he's okay now, the odds get better."

"Yes, that's right."

"We still won't be sure."

"After five years, the odds of it recurring are the same as they are for anybody to get it the first time. This is one step towards that."

"I know."

"Try not to worry too much, Donna. He's been doing really well."

"I know. I know he has. It's just—I'm still so scared."

"I know. I understand. But he's made it this far. You know there was a good chance he wouldn't, don't you?"

"Yes. Yes, I know. It's all been so hard for him, Dr. Bartlet."

"Yes, it has. But he's a strong man, Donna, amazingly strong."

"Yes, he is."

"I don't mean just physically."

"No, I know."

"Let us know when you hear. We'll have a party to celebrate, when you get the good news."

oooooo

"Nah, you can't get rid of me that easily."

It was becoming his standard line. They were all gathered in the Residence, for the party Abbey Bartlet had promised. Josh had been hugged and slapped on the back until he was red in the face with embarrassment. He had also eaten three large hamburgers, which Manuel had obligingly burnt for him, and drunk as many beers as Donna would let him. It was nice to have an appetite again.

"Come on, C.J.," the President was saying. "Sing something. Leo's told me you do something called 'The Jackass.'" His eyes were twinkling.

"'The Jackal,' Mr. President?" C.J. answered the twinkle, laughing. "I only lip-sync to that, sir. I don't think you have it in your CD collection."

"Well, sing something else. You sing—I've heard you. Come on, we need some music here. We're celebrating."

"I only sing when I'm drunk, Mr. President."

"You're drunk now, Claudia Jean."

"When I'm drunk and when I have accompaniment, sir. I don't do a cappella, no matter how drunk I am."

"Well, let's get you some accompaniment, then. I have a piano here, a very good piano. The best of pianos. Arthur Rubenstein played on this piano; Vladimir Horowitz played this piano. Don't let that intimidate anyone, though. Come on, who'll do it? We need someone to play the piano so C.J. can sing."

"Not me, sir."

"Don't look at me, sir."

"I don't play. Not a chance."

"I took lessons for a year or two, but—"

"You'll have to look somewhere else, Mr. President. Maybe call the KennedyCenter, ask them to send someone over. I'm sure they'd interrupt a concert if you asked them to."

"Come on, one of you must play. I want to hear C.J. sing."

"Josh plays," Donna said, suddenly. Everyone turned and looked at her, then at Josh, who blushed. He'd managed to keep his extra-curricular skills quiet so far, and he'd been planning to go on keeping them that way. He still felt a little odd about the whole thing.

"Josh? Have you been fooling around on that big Steinway your mother sent you?"

"What have you picked up? 'Chopsticks'? 'Heart and Soul'?"

"Doobie Brothers hits. I'll bet he plays Doobie Brothers."

"Well, if the President can stand it, I can sing to that. Come on, Josh, mi amor, show us what you can do. You can't be much worse than Sam."

Donna pushed him towards the Presidential piano.

"What do you want, Mr. President?" he asked, as he pulled out the bench and sat down. C.J. came over and leaned on the piano beside him.

"What can you do, Josh?" the President asked.

Josh pushed his sleeves up, flexed his fingers, and sat for a minute, thinking. Then he grinned. If he was going to out himself, he might as well have fun doing it.

Slowly, with one finger, and as if he was having trouble finding the notes, he started to pick out a familiar tune. Everyone laughed. C.J. stood up straight, and began to sing. The others joined in.

"Hail to the Chief, we have chosen for the nation.

Hail to the Chief, we salute him, one and all.

Hail to the Chief, as we pledge cooperation,

In proud fulfillment of a great, noble call.

Yours is the aim to make this country grander,

This you will do, that's our strong, firm belief.

Hail to the one we selected as commander,

Hail to the President! Hail to the Chief!"

"Hail to Josh! A noble effort," the President said, as he applauded. He was laughing so hard his eyes were watering.

But Josh didn't get up. Instead he started to play the tune again, this time using the fingers of his right hand properly. After the first line, he brought up his left hand, and started to add an accompaniment, chords and little rippling arpeggios that began very softly, then bit by bit grew louder as he began to work variations on the theme. Simple ones at first, adding a grace note here, a trill there; then more elaborate changes. He varied the rhythm, trying the melody out first as a waltz, then as a polka—which got him a laugh—then in ragtime. He shifted to a minor key, and treated the phrases with rubato, as if they were Chopin. Every time he played it through, he transposed it up a half-note, and played a little more loudly, till the piano was booming. When he figured he'd shown off enough, he started to wind things up with big, dramatic cadences, but he couldn't resist the temptation to do a Dudley Moore-like parody of Beethoven, and carry on from one crashing conclusion to another until his audience was laughing out loud. Finally he just took his hands off the piano in mid-phrase, looked at them, and grinned. The applause was huge. He took it with a mock bow from the piano seat. Then he cocked an eyebrow at C.J., who had been standing staring at him, her mouth open in amazement.

"Now, what was it you wanted, C.J.? Doobie Brothers?"

The party went on for some time.

oooooo

"Donna? Come out here with me."

"It's late, Josh. We've got to get home."

"Come out here."

"You were brilliant tonight, Josh."

"Nah, just having fun. I was ready to kill you when you said I played."

"The President wanted someone to play. You can't just ignore the President."

"I serve at the pleasure of the President. And at the pleasure of Donnatella Moss."

"Josh, what are you doing? Where are we going? We can't wander around the White House grounds at night; the Secret Service will kill us. Literally."

"It's okay, Donna. They know we're here."

"They do?"

"I talked to Ron earlier."

"You talked to Ron? Earlier? About wandering around the White House gardens with me, tonight, in the middle of the night?"

"We're not wandering, Donna. We're moving with purpose. Direction. Intent."

"Intent to do what?"

"You'll see."

"Oh, look Josh. It's beautiful."

"Yes, it is."

"The moon—it's so big tonight. And the roses. I've never seen roses by moonlight, Josh. Look at them."

"No thanks."

"What? Why ever not? They're beautiful."

"I've got something much more beautiful to look at."

"Oh, Josh."

"Oh, Donna. Beautiful Donna, Wonderful Donna, Amazing Donna—"

"Josh—"

"Smart Donna, Talented Donna—"

"Josh—"

"Sweet Donna, Sexy Donna, Darling Donna—"

"Josh, dear—"

"Funny Donna, Silly Donna, Indispensable Donna—"

"Josh, sweetheart—"

"Donna-of-my-heart, Donna-of-my-life—"

"Joshua."

"Donna-of-my-love, all my love, always—"

"Yes, Joshua?"

"I'm stalling, you know. Buying time."

"Yes, Josh dear, I know."

"You know what I'm trying to say?"

"Yes, of course. But I want to hear you say it."

"I do love you. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, sweetheart. I love you too."

"Will you—do you think you might—do you think you could—ever—want—"

"Want what, Josh?"

"To—Damn it, I didn't think I was going to do this again."

"It's all right, sweetheart. I'm crying too."

"Will you?"

"Yes, dear."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Marry me?"

"Yes, Josh. Of course I will."

Finis


End file.
